Making and Embroidering the Mexican Dress (from 109 Little Folks)

March 07, 2022

by Esi Hutchinson

When we talked about featuring our children's patterns this month, the 109 Little Folks pattern caught my eye.  It has the cutest folk clothes for children six to eighteen months old. These patterns are perfect for making gifts for dear family members expecting. The pattern is only available as a PDF pattern, but because these are tiny patterns, they are really easy to print at home and assemble.  You can read more about that here.  

I made the Mexican Dress from this pattern for my cousin who is expecting a girl in a few months. I also liked the idea of making it totally unique by adding the optional embroidery.  Almost every piece in this pattern has some embroidery that can be added to it.  You can even see a little about one of the designs here, and you can see how to remove the waste canvas. 

I am so excited!  Although baby girl will have to wait a few more months to wear this little dress, I loved making it. 

I made this dress from white handkerchief linen and DMC embroidery floss, with a section of 1/8" red ribbon.

Embroidery

I did not do all of the cross-stitch embroidery that comes with the pattern.  But I did embroider the sleeves and center front of the dress. The pattern has options for adding embroidery to the hem as well. 

It helps to print out the cross stitch pattern to decide what colors you would like to use.  You can color right on the print out to see what you like.  I used green, yellow, blue, and red. 

All the embroidery is done before construction, and is worked on the fabric after it has been cut into the pattern pieces.

I basted a section of waste canvas to my cut out front piece (and sleeves) so I could apply the embroidery/cross-stitching.  Make sure to give yourself some room on the outer edges of the canvas so you have plenty of room for the stitching. 

I did not follow the instructions about where to start, and I started wherever I pleased. It is probably wise to start from the top dot where stated it might make it easier to pay attention to what direction you will be going and to center the design on your piece. 

Finished what I think is grass, and now starting to stitch the flower.

 
 This is what the inside of the dress with embroidery looks like so far. 

 I really liked making the chicken, I'm glad there are two of them.

I finished the front embroidery for the Dress, I am very pleased with it so far.

Next, I worked the embroidery on the sleeves.  This went very quickly and I just did a couple rows of cross stitching with the waste canvas.  

I finished with the amount of cross-stitching I wanted to do for this dress. Once embroidering is done, the waste canvas can be removed.

It is helpful to cut as much as you can away, just make sure to not to cut the fabric or the stitching. 

I soaked one sleeve with the scrim still attached just to test it out.  It loosened the waste canvas threads and made it easier to pull apart in my opinion. A pair of tweezers works well too.

I am not used to working with gussets, so the assembling of the sleeves was a little confusing for me, but I figured it out.  Just pay attention to where the stars and dots are on the gusset and on the sleeves and body of the dress and you are good to go. It is a good idea to mark them with a washable marker, Crayola markers are perfect.

Hem the sleeves and the bottom of the body of the dress and you are finished with the cutest Mexican Dress!

I am so excited to gift this dress, it quite easy to make and the cross-stitching is a perfect activity to keep busy and creative, watch a good show/movie and stitch away.  It really doesn't take that long, especially on a tinydress like this.  Enjoy making! Please show us what you have made from the 109 Little Folks patterns. 

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