I spent my afternoon making another dress for Little Dresses for Africa and had a much easier time with the pillow case dress.
I am the amateur of amateurs and combined the knowledge of several sites claiming to have "the easiest directions" for the pillow case dress, so I decided to put everything together that I learned and put it here for a One Stop Easy Shop on how to make this dress. If you are using a yard of fabric, not a pillowcase.
The biggest bulk of my instructions are from eHow.
However, for the length, I got my info from the Little Dresses site, that I link up in my first sentence.
So, from shoulder to hem, the size goes aaaaas follows:
Small = 2, 3, and 4 (16-22 inches long)
Medium = 5, 6, and 7 (24-28 inches long)
Large = 8,9, and 10 (30-34 inches long)
X-Large - size 11 and above (anything over 35 inches long)
I wanted today's dress to be for a large size, so I made sure it was 34 in final length.
Now, here is a secret I learned after last night's dress that you will not find in the tutorials. Everyone else says, if you aren't using a pillow cause, begin by sewing your sides together.
Not me.
As The Amateur of Amateurs, I found this waaaaaaaay easier by sewing the side of the dress up toward the end.
My first step was folding up the fabric and cutting out the arm holes.
Um... that is a little smaller than I intended. But it gets my point across. Fold in half once, and you have the width of your dress. Fold in half again and cut 2inches in and 4 inches down from the "raw" corner (not the beautifully folded one!). Make sure you cut through all four layers of fabric!
For toddlers, you should cut 1.5 inches in and 3 inches down.
I took the 2in/4in as a suggestion and since my dress in intended for grown girl, I cut 3 and 5. The beauty of this dress is that it's all easily adjustable by the girl when she ties the ribbon in the end ::sigh of relief::
Once that was cut, I didn't even use pins to sew it up. I just folded down as little fabric as I could and went to town.
My second step was the bottom hem. Because I knew I was making this for a tall girl, I made a small hem.
NOTE: When it comes to how much I sew at hems, I use measurements loosely. As long as it's straight, I'm happy.
Next was the part that I was SO not getting in the tutorials last night. Maybe I was sleepy. I don't know.
We are back at the neckline. First, you need to fold the edge down just a tad to it is nice and pretty. If you insist on a measurement, then sew 1/4". So do that on both sides.
Then, this is where I kept getting lost, because no one spoke Amateur Talk. Now you fold *again* and this is the "tunnel" where you will slide the ribbons through.
Do you realize how much searching it took for me to understand that?
Anyway, personally, my way of measurement for this was folding it over my thumb and making it super snug. The actual measurement it supposed to be 5/8 of an inch.
So this photo shows the "before" and "after" of that instruction. In front, you see how I have sewn the 1/4, but haven't pinned it, yet, for my ribbon's tunnel. In the back, you see that it is pinned and ready for me to sew the tunnel!
The ribbon.
I love the finished look, but I HATE threading the ribbon through!! And since I'm new to this, I'm lacking in tools, so I don't have a safety pin to attach to the ribbon to help thread it through.
So I got creative. I wrapped the ribbon around a pen and pushed the pen through my tunnel (why isn't it called a tunnel, really?")
And THEN....
The dress was done!!:::sigh:::
I'll be happy when I find my camera's charger.
PS I think it's only fair to plug a REAL talent, in case you happened upon my site in search of handmade clothes for little ones.
Take a look at Sweet Bug Designs for precious handmade clothing!
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