Duplicating a Favorite Dress

By August 29, 2011 , ,

100_4120So I LOVE this dress I got from J. Crew and the other day it struck me that, it's essentially a giant pillow case dress. (Those not in the little girl fashion know: a pillow case dress is a boxy dress that can be made from a pillow case, or a pillow case amount of fabric, it's a simple design and can be super cute. )
So looking at the construction I decided hey I can soooo do this, and  I did, using 2 yards of green seersucker I got at Hobby Lobby last year for $8
I hope to make a pattern to share from this, but I definitely need to make a second dress before I've got the whole technique down, no worries though I plan on making a second soon!
Here’s a photo tutorial of my process, if you have a similar dress to base your pattern on, try this method!
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Fold dress in half and pin to 2 yards of fabric, also folded in half
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Go ahead and create a pattern with wrapping paper so you don’t have to pin up your dress each time you make one.100_4083
100_4089Pattern pieces beneath the dress, note how I added seam allowance, in hindsight I wish I had added more100_4090100_4092Pressing and pinning the bottom hem, then sewing it as straight as possible. 100_4093
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Sniping the curve of the arm holes, and keeping even with a seam gauge.
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Making sure both armhole curves match up after pressing.
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Pinning the sides making sure the armholes match up.
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Double folding the open hem on the back where the ribbon will thread through.
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Pressed and ready to sew
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Trying to sew straight
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Using the original dress as a guide for the slight scoop, I snip and fold over the front of the dress, I didn’t leave enough seam allowance to do a double fold =(
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It
matches at last!!
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Really trying to sew straight since it’s the collar of the dress, since it was going to be tricky to thread the ribbon in I sewed this part with a nylon string into for easy threading.
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Threading the ribbon on through!
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All done, can’t wait to wear it!!
I promise a pattern is coming soon!! I need to make a second one to work out kinks first!

Photobucket Photobucket

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4 comments

  1. Wow -- very impressive!

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  2. Hi Kirsti! Thank you so much for linking up to my sewer newbie link party!!!! I added the link party on a whim and I'm so glad I did so that I could see this AWESOME dress you made. It's super cute!!! I can't wait to look through your blog and learn more about you girl! Thanks again!
    xoxo
    Cat
    aka
    BudgetBlonde

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a great dress!!! So fun that you used a fave dress you already had to make the pattern. Great idea. I have a fashion linky party that has this project's name all over it ;) It's calle diy diva thursdays and we'd love to have you link up!

    kara
    www.mineforthemaking.com

    ReplyDelete