School clothes for Gwen

I've been trying to find some school clothes for Gwen. As she is getting older she is running out of stuff in my "grow into" box. I guess I need to start searching the clearance racks at the end of the season more and buy for the next size. Anyway, I've been overwhelmed by the cost of buying a bunch of full price/"sale" clothes all at once. She REALLY wanted a polka dot dress and polka dot shoes. So I found both of them and I don't think they will look to silly together. Since she is SO into wearing dresses right now, I also got her some tights so she won't get too cold on the walk to school and on the playground. I figured I should make her some more dresses. Here is the pattern I got New Look 6639 I used some pre-embroidered fabric I could in the denim department. The fabric is black, and feels like stretchy denim with bunches of cherries sewn onto it. Here is how it turned out, with the shoes she wanted.
I think it will look great with a red or a white t shirt and black tights. The pattern was easy to follow. I don't think I actually read anything, I just looked at the pictures next to each written instruction and was able to figure it out. It also has an option for sewing the dress with 6 square pieces making up the front panel. I think I will try making a denim dress out of some old jeans with holes in them next. (If we didn't toss them out already :)
Things to remember for next time

• If you add the ruffle instead of hemming like normal it is long enough to be a dress, otherwise you will need to wear it as a tunic top with leggings.
• The fabric I used to make the ruffle was some left over silky blanket binding. but as I was sewing it the binding got caught in the feed dogs on my sewing machine and snagged a little bit, so I have a feeling that it will get ruined quickly on the playground and in the washing machine by Velcro. When that happens I'll just remove it and add a red cotton ruffle.
• The button holes were not as bad as I thought they would be. I did them by hand with embroidery thread and that gave me SO MUCH more control than trying to do it on the sewing machine. I'm interested to see how they stand up to being put through the washing machine.
• I'm not sure if I made a size too big or if I just needed to fit it to Gwen before I sewed the side seems up, but I think that it would be better if I cinched the elastic to be a little bit tighter in the back.