christmas dress?

I spent a few nights earlier this week with my mother in law. She's such a wonderful lady and always willing to help with anything I ask.  This generally includes babysitting duties, or housework, but the other night it was a 'sewing' request along the lines of 'can you help me work out how to make this dress?'..

Not only did we draft a pattern from an existing dress, but over the course of 2 nights, we made 4 dresses (yep, I can never just make one of anything!).  There were 2 slightly different styles - one tied on one shoulder (we made 3 of these for my cousin's gorgeous daughters), and the other tied on both shoulders (as seen modelled below by Lola). I plan on making one of these styles for Lola to wear on Christmas day out of a gorgeous red gingham linen that I bought at Spotlight.

Thank you Lily for all the teachings and the encouragement. oh, and the unpicking :)