twirly whirly DRESS

Sugar Tartes, are you ready for a sweet and easy dress you can make in less than an hour? 


Best of all it is made using repurposed materials...so the hubs should be pleased! ;)


Let's grab our materials.... 


*Grab any shirt that is a little too short on your princess giving her a slight resemblance to Mr. Winnie the Pooh.


In our case, Miss A has some tanks from last summer that are still in pretty good shape, minus the lack of length.


*And some fabric for the body of the dress.



*grab a tape measure and a fabric pen and mark about 3" from the armpit on both sides

*Get ready to cut straight across

*You will end up with 2 pieces, put the bottom, to the side for now

*Disclaimer* Just because you have scissors in your hand, it doesn't mean that you have to stop and trim split ends because you caught a glimpse of them!

...I digress...


*Grab the fabric that you chose for the body and fold it in half widthwise or selvage edge to selvage edge (other wise known as the white edges with writing and stuff)


(for Miss A, who is a size 8, I am cutting it at 22" so that the length will fall just below her knee)

*Head over to your serger and finish off your bottom edge

*Now head over to your iron to fold and press your edge to form a hem.

*Head back over to your serger and sew up your sides (selvage edge)

Remember that you just ironed down your hem, so just unfold it, to serge.

*now back to your hem.  Fold it back into place and topstitch it down.

*Head back to the annoying iron that you keep turning off, then having to wait for it heat back up, and press your edge down.

*Topstitch your hem

*Grab your fabric again at the opposite end, and lets get it ready to gather.

*Gathering, is really simple.  Just set your sewing machine to the longest stitch, and remember NOT to backstitch :)

*Stitch around, until your ends almost meet 

and remember to leave long tails.

*Time to match up the edge of your shirt, and the edge of the dress that you just stitched.  Mark at the seams, and the midpoints in-between (so you have 4 markings on both pieces)

The easiest methods I have found are either to mark them with a fabric pen, or pins.

*Turn your shirt inside out and with right sides facing together, match up your 4 points.

*Attach the bodice (shirt) and dress (fabric) using your serger or sewing machine.

*Here's what you have...only 1 step left :)

*Iron down your dress...

Ta-Da!

OH WAIT!  Didn't we have the bottom edge of the shirt?

Go grab it! Hurry! (no not really, and actually I HIGHLY encourage you to stop and take a little chocolate break) ;)

*Pair it with a little onesie...

Now repeat the step above, and now you have a super cute little dress for your smelly rat dog...uhh umm, I mean princess ;)

*I just added a raw edge ruffle to the collar, to match Miss A's dress.

Hugs! Ingrid