Girls Holiday Dress - Frankenpattern

I've been really into sewing for the socialite this past holiday season. Her projects are quick and fun PLUS she loves it when I sew for her. The only thing she likes better is sewing it herself so I'll be involving her more in future projects.Back to this adorable holiday dress. I've had this gold metallic knit fabric since July. I know for sure because I got it at the Mimi G Conference this year. It's been in my stash because I've been unsure what to do with it. I never thought it would lend itself to a piece for miss socialite, but as the holiday approached and I was on a roll of sewing girls looks, it hit me. A girls holiday dress would be too cute!I knew a full dress of metallic gold would be too grown and overwhelming for a 9yo so I decided to break it up with velvet. Velvet screams winter to me and although I don't think I own anything velvet I have seen it being used quite a bit this year. Thankfully I found this stretch velvet at Joann. It took some searching and I got off track when I spotted another stretch velvet bolt (that I bought as well, that post will be up soon) but I did find it and buy the whole piece (about 1-3/8 yards). I really like the velvet and knew she would too.This dress is a really simple semi fitted bodice with a gathered skirt. I used McCalls 7309 for the bodice, which features three quarter sleeves and neckband for the round neck. For the skirt I debated between a circle skirt and a gathered skirt. Circle skirts are the best for twirling, but I decided a gathered skirt might look more "formal" so I went gathered.  I simply cut a 18" wide strip the length of the fabric (60"). This provided less than 2x's the waist circumference (the minimum I usually want for gathers) but for a girl it was fine. Confession: Selfishly I wanted to save a little fabric for me and this left me with 1-1/2 yards. If I would have cut two longer pieces then I would have been down to 1 yard. I simply sewed the selvage ends together and then gathered the top edge to match the width/circumference of the waist of the bodice. I attached the two being careful to keep the gathers somewhat even. Thankfully Micheal Levine cut and incredibly even edge so I left the hem raw, which was great because I didn't have gold thread.M7309 also included a fabric flower on View D that I thought about adding. On that view they have it attached to the upper left chest area. I think I will add the flower in gold but attach it to a velvet belt so that it can be removable. I don't think it looks too shabby by itself.