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Sewing for Girls

Get Ready for Spring: With Love dress pattern review

As part of the Get Ready for Spring blog tour, today I’m reviewing the Girl’s With Love dress sewing pattern from Ellie and Mac. This is a great sewing project for beginners and is a fun dress with ruffles and a gathered sleeve. Read on for my full pattern review.

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OK, we don’t really have spring here in the desert – there are three seasons: a bit cool, hot and it’s so hot my lungs are cooking with each breath. It’s always dress season, and my daughter can never have too many dresses in her wardrobe.

She’s an active girl, always in the yard, on her bike, climbing or running around, but also a girly girl. She loves her dresses with ruffles and lots of pink and wants to feel like a princess while she’s running around.

Knit fabrics are perfect for the active girl. They don’t wrinkle and they allow full body movement for the girl who’s climbing around (and it’s much harder to tear a hole in it too! The Girl’s With Love dress sewing pattern from Ellie and Mac is perfect for my daughter.

Girls' With Love dress pdf sewing pattern review. This beautiful dress from Ellie and Mac is a fun but practical dress for girls is easy to make and perfect for beginners.
Yes, she’s wearing sports shoes with the dress. That’s how we roll!

It has ra-ra ruffles on the side and a gathered sleeve for a girly look, and a front panel that is perfect for a feature print or panel.

Ellie and Mac Girl's With Love dress sewing pattern review

The centre fabric is Frolicking in raspberry from the Frolic On collection by Tamara Kate for Michael Miller fabrics. It’s a lovely medium-weight jersey, perfect for play. The pale pink is a jersey that I bought from an Australian fabric mill that has since gone out of business.

It's lots of fun to twirl in the With Love dress. Sewing pattern by Ellie and Mac.

The With Love sewing pattern is a great pattern for confident beginners – if you’ve mastered straight seams and you want to branch out, this is a great pattern. There are lots of photos for each step of the pattern to walk you through sewing this dress (as with most independent pattern designers). There were a few times that I thought an extra photo or two could be added, particularly around gathering the sleeves and ruffles. That may be my fault relying on my sewing experience and mainly glancing at the pictures while I sewed and not reading the text closely.

Ruffled short sleeve dress sewing pattern for girls from Ellie and Mac.

It was a reasonably quick sew, although anything with layers of ruffles will take a while. I sewed it up in one day while the kids were at school (with a bit of time spent doing the day-to-day chores). I made the size 10, based on my daughter’s waist measurement, and it’s a great fit with a bit of room to grow.

Girls dress sewing pattern from Ellie and Mac with ruffles and gathered short sleeves.

Either way, my daughter is happy to add another dress to her wardrobe! Get your Girl’s With Love dress sewing pattern from Ellie and Mac.

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Narelle, Threadistry Chief Creator

I'm Narelle and I believe sewing is most rewarding when you learn by sewing what you love. I'm a Burda-certified sewing instructor and love sharing sewing tips, tricks and tutorials.

I'm Narelle and I believe sewing is most rewarding when you learn by sewing what you love.

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