Hi everyone! To be honest, it wasn’t easy transforming this simple dress, but I think
it looks pretty good. It’s been awhile since I designed or used my sewing machine, so it
took me some time to get back into it. If you didn’t get a chance to check out what
the dress and initial design sketch looked like, click this link in the upper right hand
corner or down below. At the end of the video, Let me know if I nailed the design compared
to the sketch! I would love to hear your opinions!
To start, I have to remove the elastic to flatten out the dress and then separate the
bodice from the skirt. In order to do this, the waistband needed to be seam ripped and
then cut to remove the elastic.
Once removed, I figured it was easier to just cut the bodice
from the skirt, verses keeping the seam allowance. It was so hard to tell where the lace started
and the stitches started. And I didn’t want to rip open the lace.
To be honest, it was so weird cutting this dress up! I was cringing as I was cutting it.
After trying on the bodice, I needed to add another strip to the bottom. It ended up being
way too short but it looked good as a crop top! Taking the extra fabric from the skirt,
I drafted a pattern to add 3 inches. This gives me room to attach the skirt at my natural waist.
I used the existing curve of the bodice to draft my curve to keep it the same, just longer.
Then I cut the pattern from the skirt fabric and baste stitched the front liner to the lace.
This keeps the two fabrics in check, no movement when I attach it to the bodice.
Next, I seam ripped about an inch of the bodice side seams, attached the extra panels, sewed
the side seams, and then finished off the all seams with the serger for a clean look.
I decided not to deepened the V in the back to save time plus, it looked just fine the
way it was. I definitely wanted to keep this simple!
Now onto the skirt pattern. I would’ve loved to show you how I drafted the half circle
skirt pattern, but my room is way too small and the camera couldn’t film enough of the
pattern to make sense. So here’s a little drawing instead! If you’re trying to draft
a circle skirt, I definitely recommend googling circle skirt calculations. There are a few
free websites that let you plug in your waist measurement and skirt length and it will figure
out what your radius should be. This makes it ten times easier!
I need to draft two patterns for mine. A liner pattern and a chiffon pattern. For the liner
pattern, my radius needed to be 9 3/8 in, so I measured out from my 90 degree angle
and then used my ruler to draw the circle. I then measured out the skirt length and added
seam allowance. It was the same process for my chiffon pattern but my radius there was
19 inches. That’s about 2 times the fabric for gathering.
Since my fabric was only about 48 wide, I needed to cut the pattern down in half and
cut on the fold. So that means that I need 2 liner pieces and 4 chiffon pieces, verses
half of that.
I pinned the pattern onto the fabric and then cut.
For the bow, I just cut a long rectangular strip, 7 inches wide and about 4 yards long.
I’ll have to finish off the edges but that’s about it!
I lined up and pinned the liner pieces and sewed both side seams, then I finished off
the seams with the serger.
I lined up, pinned, and serged all the seams of the chiffon together.
Instead of sewing, I just serged my seams for a cleaner and simpler look plus it saves so much time!
Once that’s done, I gathered the waist at the seam allowance with a basting stitch, Leaving about an inch gap.
Now I start gathering. Gently and slowly gathering the fabric, otherwise it could get stuck.
I then lined up the side seams of the chiffon to those of the liner, wrong side of chiffon to the right side of liner.
Basically exactly how it’s supposed to look.
Then I evenly spaced out the gathers to fill the waistline of the liner. Pinned that into place and sew.
Now with the right sides together, I lined up the side seams, center front and back, to the bodice.
Pinned, sewed, and finished the edges.
Flip the seam allowance up from the skirt and then sew onto the bodice. This gives the skirt and bodice a little more structure
and the is where I will be attaching the elastic.
So this wasn’t part of the plan, but I decided to add some lace details to hide the
panel and give the dress some character. I attached and combined two different lace ribbons
using a zig zag stitch and it looks perfect!
Since I ran out of normal corded elastic, I am using this elastic strap instead.
Measured my waist to my desired fit, and then attached it to the back of the bodice at seam of the skirt with a basic zig zag stitch.
Once that’s done, I finished off my hem with the serger and the dress is complete!
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Thank you so much for watching and I’ll see you next week! Bye!