Dress Tutorial

I recently made a dress which I devised a pattern for using a dress that I knew fitted.  As I made up the pattern I had no sewing instructions to follow and had to make them up as I went along.  I decided that in case I wanted to make another one, which I probably will, I was best off taking pictures as I went to remember what I did.  So here they are, a tutorial with pictures of a lined shift dress with an invisible zip.

This dress was made from two different pieces of material for the front and back if you are using one you can skip this stage.  Pin the outer material pieces right sides together and sew.

Pin the shoulders right sides together on both the outer material and the lining and sew together (independently).  Outer to outer and lining to lining.

Pin the outer material to the lining around the neckline with the right sides facing and sew.

Cut the material down to your stitching, taking care not to cut through your stitches, in slits about 1cm apart all the way round the neckline.  This will enable the neck to sit flat without bunching.

This is what it should look like on the right side:

Next up is the zip, pin this to the outer fabric so that the right sides are together, and tack (sew some temporary stitches).  Lay the right side of the lining over the top and do the same. If you want to check you have got the right side of the material and the zip turn everything the right way out at this point to check. Then machine sew using a zip foot, if you have got one.  I had to look this up to find out what it looked like!

Now for the other side of the zip.  I have turned the side I have just sewn to right side facing the part I need to sew the zip to and pinned and tacked as before.  Then repeat with the lining and machine sew the zip in.  Again check before you machine sew that you have everything the right way round.

It should look like this when you have finished sewing:

Now for the armholes.  Lay the dress on the table with the right side facing down and the lining uppermost.

Roll the edge nearest to you away from you:

Reach underneath and bring on top the outer fabric that is not rolled up, the armhole edge of the lining is uppermost in this picture the outer fabric is at the bottom:

Fold the outer fabric over onto the lining so that the right sides are together and your roll of fabric is in the middle.  Pin and sew, take care when sewing to ensure that you don't end up sewing the fabric rolled up inside.  I failed to take a picture of this bit but the picture below shows the armhole sewn and cut as per the neck piece to prevent bunching of fabric.  The armhole is at the bottom of this picture:

Now for the magic bit, reach inside your tube and gently pull the fabric out until you have everything the right way out.  It took me ages to work out how to sew the armholes and the ta dah moment when it looked like this was amazing.  I had a very wide smile at that point!

When you have sewn both the armholes turn the whole dress inside out and pin the outer fabric and lining as one long seam:

Sew both sides up, hem as desired and your dress is complete:

Joining in with Nicole for sharing of making and creating, head on over to see what others have been up to.

Elephants

A couple of weeks ago I shared some material that I intended to make into a dress for my daughter.  I had already tried to make one dress which sadly ended rather badly with a half finished item that doesn't fit and is beyond my sewing skills to rescue.  I am hoping my mum can help when she visits later this week.  I didn't want to try another bought pattern but I had read about using an existing garment to create a 'pattern' of your own in this lovely book, so I thought I would give that a go.

The first step is to draw around the item, this dress is a simple sleeveless tunic style dress with a zip up the back, onto the pattern paper.  I am sure you can buy expensive paper which is designed for that job, I used greaseproof/baking paper from my kitchen drawer!

You will need to examine the garment carefully to work out how many pieces it has.  This dress has three a front piece and two back pieces.  The back pieces are identical so I only needed one pattern piece, I also decided to draw the front piece in half and fold the material in half to cut it.

Lay the garment, it's a good idea to iron it first, on the paper and carefully draw round it with a dark pencil.  The neckline on this garment was lower at the front than the back.

To get the shape for the front piece you can either draw it freehand or, as I did, use a small piece of paper inserted into the dress to get the shape, which I then transferred to the pattern piece.

Once you have drawn round the garment remove it from the paper you now need to add your seam allowances.  I added 1.5cm.  I used a ruler to mark in dashes and then joined them together.

The original garment is all once piece on the front and back but I wanted to divide them in two.  I worked out where I wanted the seam to run across the front and back and drew that onto the pattern and then added a seam allowance for each piece.

I could have cut these out as separate pieces but I decided to just fold the pattern pieces on the lines to cut the material.  I made this dress fully lined.

I had no pattern to follow when it came to sewing it up.  I managed to work out how to sew in an invisible zip and sleeves without hand sewing and will share how I did this another week otherwise this post will get a bit long and I need to go and make some food for my daughter's birthday party this afternoon.  I will leave you with pictures of the finished article, my daughter loves it and has worn it for the last two days!

Joining in with Nicole........head on over to see what others have been making.