I can't say how happy I am to have my vacation behind me. Confession. I forgot my camera at home! So all we have are grainy phone camera photos of our 5 day vacation. Oh well. But the long weekend left me plenty of time to think of some great blog series for you all, so be sure to sign up to follow my blog. There's some great stuff coming!

On to the topic of today's post. The Patterns For Pirates Ruffled Dubloon. My sweet girl turned 5 while we were on vacation and I whipped up this P4P Ruffled Dubloon the night before we left in under an hour. it is quick patterns like these that bring me the instant gratification I love.

So, notes on the pattern. I didn't do any of the extra ruffles the pattern includes as options. My kids just don't love ruffles so it would have been a waste of my energy. I cheated and used elastic to gather in the skirt. That made it super easy to get the bodice and skirt attached to each other.

The floral print is a Girl Charlee Knit Fix Fabric. With knit fix, you get 2 yards of the each fabric. I had already used the fabric for a complete set pants and long sleeve shirt from the Peekaboo Pattern Shop Alex and Anna Jammies.  So I didn't have a lot of fabric left. So while I wanted long sleeves, that wasn't an option. I cheated and created my own 3/4 length line on the pattern piece. Basically I figured out how much fabric I had left and then cut that length in half to make 2 sleeves. Thankfully they hit just right on her arm.

The solid pink is a gorgeous cotton lycra from Mabel Madison. As best as I can tell, they don't have any more of the solid left. But I can 100% vouch for their jersey fabrics. Good recovery, wash up so well, and really bright.

My one complaint is that my neckband is just too short. I followed the pattern measurements, but you can see the pulling along the top stitching. Now, this could be because the floral knit isn't as stretchy as other fabrics, but I don't like the puckering. If i was going to do it again, I'd probably remeasure my neckline and double check the measurements and maybe add just a tiny bit to the over all length of the neckband to minimize the pulling.

My girl of course is happy with her new dress and if she's happy, I'm happy. Added an aside. Leggings are Dandelions n Dungarees Free leggings pattern in Purple Seamstress Cotton Lycra. Be sure to follow my blog, as I'll be doing a long review of ALL the free girls legging patterns.