Easy Dress Tutorial!

My First Tutorial! How exciting, hope I don’t confuse anyone!!!

Simple Dress

Material:

-shirt

-fabric

-thread

-scissors

-ruler

-chalk

-calculator

-pins

-iron and board

Amount of fabric for the skirt:

1) Measure your natural waist (we’ll call this measurement X)

2) Measure from your natural waist till 2 inches below where you want the skirt to hit -for me this was a   few inches below my knees (we’ll call this Y)

3) Take Y and multiply it by 2 (for each side of the skirt) this is how many inches of fabric you need. If you want it in yards divide Y by 36”.

-I needed 2 1/3 yd of fabric

Now you’re finally ready to start!!!

Steps:

1) Pre wash the shirt and fabric, if you plan on drying the dress pre dry them too! This will prevent any shrinking after all your hard work.

2) Lay the fabric flat on the floor with the wrong side facing up

 3)Measure the X of the skirt, if you want it twirly go ahead and use the whole length (you’ll still have to measure it for calculations later)

4) Measure the Y of the skirt, marking it with chalk

      5) Do steps 3 & 4 twice for the front and back, then cut these pieces out for the skirt

       6) Calculations (not fun but necessary): 

         X + 1½” (seam allowance) + ½” (ease) = Z

       Length of fabric – Z = a number. Whatever this number is find an odd number like 5 to divide it by. This is the amount you will measure for each pleat, V. (This isn’t a perfect science so be prepared to alter here and there to get the right numbers)

      7) Mark the middle of your fabric (the X way), measure V and place a pin to the right. Fold the second pin underneath, pin the fabric, creating a pleat. 

      

     8) Do the same thing, this time measuring V to the left of the center pin. This will create one big center pleat,

     9) Measure V from the furthest pin, creating another pleat. Do this until you have the desired number of pleats.

      10) Measure the pleated skirt to make sure it measures Z, if not make alterations in the last pleats       

                         

      11) Repeat 7-10 for the back part of the skirt

      12) Baste across the top of the skirt, close to top to hold the pleats in place

    13) Place the right sides of the skirt together and pin the sides together, sew together with a ¾” seam allowance

     14) Turn right side out and play around with where 

    you want it on the shirt, when you find where put a pin to mark the spot

     15)  Measure around the shirt at the pin, also measure 3 inches lower to allow for space to attach the skirt, then cut off the bottom of 

      the shirt AT THE LOWER LINE

       16) Pin the skirt and shirt right sides together at the higher line, and sew the skirt to the shirt                                

      17)  Put the dress on, have someone help you pin the hem. Measure from the ground and pin where you want the skirt to fall

       18) Measure one inch below the hem, cut off the excess fabric, fold the fabric twice over and pin it at the hem level, sew it to complete the hem

    

    19) Top stitch the skirt, pull the shirt and the top of the  skirt underneath and sew as close as possible to the top  of the skirt. This'll help make the skirt a little bit flatter.

TA DA!!!! You are all done! Wasn’t that easy?! (at least I hope it was) Enjoy your lovely dress!

 

This is another one that I made that turned out really well! And it is super easy to wear, the only thing I tend to add to these is a belt or something in the middle to help it fit a bit better and help break up the dress to give it more of an "outfit" feel!

Clearly I had too much time over winter break!