cute shirt + cute fabric = easiest dress ever

janeiro 24, 2022 Postar um comentário

Today's sewing tutorial is piece of cake. Actually like shooting fish in a barrel. If you read blogs much you lot've probably seen it before: just stitch some cute gathered fabric onto the lesser of a cute shirt to make an even cuter clothes. Done. Heed-blowingly uncomplicated. But many of the tutorials I've seen for this type of clothes skip one unproblematic footstep that really adds to the professional wait of a gathered brim dress.

If you look at commercial dresses that have a gathered skirt fastened to a tee or tank top, you'll ever see elastic sewn right into the seam assart between the skirt and top.

Adding elastic at the waist ensures that the gathered brim won't stretch out the peak, leaving you with a shapeless clothes. Also, it just makes the dress wait a fleck more professional person.

This is a great style to save tops that still fit simply have gotten too curt, or just an easy method to beef up your petty girl's Sunday wardrobe. Seriously, this volition be the easiest dress you've ever made.

Here's what you'll do. Commencement with a tee or tank, and cut off plenty of the bottom so it but reaches to your girl'south natural waist. Fold a piece of cloth in one-half (I used just over ane/2 chiliad of 44 inch wide chambray) and stitch down one side to create a skirt.

You'll want to mark the center front, centre dorsum, and each side of both the top and the brim piece – I just utilise pins. Marking these locations makes information technology easier to get your gathers fifty-fifty.

To gather the skirt, sew 2 rows of basting stitches along the elevation edge, about 1/2 inch and iii/iv inch away from the border. Basting stitches are made with a long run up length and a low run up tension (upper photo below). Then you tin can catch the bobbin threads and pull to start gathering up the skirt (lower photo below).

You want to get together the tiptop of the skirt until it is the aforementioned size as the bottom of the tee you're using. You lot also want to distribute the gathers evenly, so that the marks at the centre front, center back, and sides of the skirt friction match upwardly with the aforementioned marks on the shirt (as seen below).

At this point you lot'll proceed yous shirt right side out, only turn the skirt within out. Slide the shirt inside the brim (neckline of shirt is down) and match up the bottom of the shirt with the gathered edge of the skirt. Pivot together, existence sure to lucifer the places y'all marked before, and evenly distributing the gathers betwixt those spots. Sew to attach skirt to top, using a sew that has some stretch (narrow zig zag, stretch stitch, serged stitch).

Now, to make the dress look more than professional, you're going to sew together some rubberband right into the seam yous simply sewed. Grab a piece of narrow (3/eight inch) elastic that's about the length of your daughter's waist. Identify it on top of the seam assart and sew around again, giving the elastic a expert stretch as y'all sew. I like to use a wide zig zag or serge stitch here to encase the elastic as I sew.

When you get all the mode around, just overlap the elastic a bit and trim off whatever excess. Here's what it looks like when you're done (I used a serger, but again, you could merely zig zag the rubberband onto the seam allowance):

This will pull the waistline in a little more and ensure that the gathered skirt doesn't stretch out the waist of the dress over fourth dimension.

Your final steps are to pull out your gathering stitches and hem the apparel. Easy!

PS – I sized downwardly the top from a clearance find at Target, and the skirt is made from this adorable polka chambray from Jo-Ann.

Hullo at that place! I'grand a busy mom of five who loves to brand things. Crafts, recipes, sewing, holiday projects: I've tried them all, and you tin too! I love Easy projects anyone tin make.