The Making of a Dress. . . [Tutorial]

I promised you it was coming!
Here's the tutorial on the making of the dress:



Materials Needed:

• 2 yards of fabric
  [for thinner fabric like mine was you may want to double it]
  
• Scissors
  
• Pins
  
• Sewing Machine
  
• Thread
  
• Elastic Thread
  

[Project will probably take 1.5 - 2 hours]

I started by finding some fabulous fabric on sale for $1.50 a yard:


And then I sketched out a little plan:


[it obviously changed as I went along, but it helped having an idea before I started cutting]

So here's the how-to:

Cut out two 11.5 x 22 inch pieces
[or four if you're doubling for thickness- and for the rest of this post, just double all the directions if you are]

Using one of the cuts, fold over and iron a 1 inch seem on the top [the 22 inch side]:


Now for the elastic thread. . .
If you've never used it before, don't worry- it's not difficult!
You put it in the bobbin and sew it into the fabric.
Then afterwards you iron it and the heat makes it scrunch up.
Easy, right? :]

You're going to have to wind your bobbin with elastic thread by hand.
I learned by trial and error that the tighter you wind it, the more it will scrunch in the end. . . so I suggest winding it pretty tightly!

Sew straight lines across the width of the fabric spaced about 1/4 inch apart. For the front side, I sewed 5 of these lines to make a secure band above the bust line. And then I ironed the thread to make it scrunch:


Measure out 2-3 inches to skip and then sew and iron 3 more elastic lines below the bust:


For the second 11.5 x 22 piece, do the same, but do not skip anything. . .
sew the lines 1/4 inch apart almost all the way down the fabric
[save about 1-2 inches at the end so that you can attach it to the skirt].

Put the two pieces together, front to front, gage how you would like it to fit, and pin down the sides.

Sew the pieces together and trim the excess.


It should look something like this:


Halfway there!

Next, you're going to need to cut out pieces for the skirt.
I cut the fabric 28 inches long, and I tapered the fabric from the top to the bottom. The top was 25 inches wide and the bottom was 31 inches.

Pin the fabric face to face together and sew them together. Trim the excess.

I would now like to point out the huge disparity in size between the top and the skirt:


To fix this [while keeping a lovely bell-like skirt] sew around the band of the skirt [with elastic thread in the bobbin]. Iron the thread to scrunch the top of the skirt.

Ahh, looks much more promising now, doesn't it? :]


Hang in there! Almost done.

Now pin the top and the bottom halves together:


And sew [STILL with elastic thread in the bobbin. . . you don't want it to be too tight- the elastic will help it "give"] the two halves together.
Trim the excess.

Only thing left is to hem the bottom.

I love wide hems, so I put in a 1.5 inch hem.



Sew and trim. . . and . . .
Voila!


A lovely summery dress.

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions about my instructions!
And if you make the dress, I'd love to hear about it!

♥

I'm linking to these parties.