My First Dress....

So I finished my on a whim dress. It actually didn't come out so great. But for it being my very first one, and my not using a pattern, I think it turned out well. I used an old sheet, and some fabric that I purchased to practice on. Now that I've gone through the whole process I feel confident that I can make a great dress the next time. So here are my mistakes and successes.

I started out by tracing a shirt that fits well. This was mistake one, because the shirt was stretchy and I didn't take my measurements. 

Then I traced a dress that I like the shape of so I could make this dress a similar shape.

Next I cut it out. At this point I was supper excited and I started sewing. But this whole portion was a bust. I couldn't get things to line up properly and the top was way too small. So I decided to scrap this idea. What I ended up doing was cutting the top portion off of this piece.

Armed with a much better idea and new confidence I took a piece of fabric I had and folded it in half then in half again. I then traced a t-shirt on the fold. I added extra room for my measurements. 

Then I drew on a neck line. 

I cut out the neckline and the rest of the top.

The top piece should look like this when you unfold it.

Then I matched up my pieces and sewed them together. 

Next I made facing for the neckline. Again I made a mistake here by not adding an inch or two to the length of the facing. But what I did right was measure the neck line and cut out a piece to fill it. 

Once I cut out the pieces I sewed one of the ends together. Then I folded the fabric length wise and sewed it again. 

The facing was way too big so I cut it down to 1 1/2".

Then I added the facing, hemmed the sleeves and the skirt hem. I had originally added cap sleeves to the dress but it wasn't working and the top was falling in a good position so I took them off and just hemmed it. I ran some elastic through the facing because it wouldn't lay down properly, which actually looked very cute. I also added a bow to the shoulder. I really didn't like how the dress was hanging so I repeated the steps for the facing and added it to the middle portion as a band. When all that was done the dress was too short so I added some material to the bottom to make it longer. 

Sorry I don't have pictures of this portion, at that point I was in the zone lol but the finished product came out like this... 

Happy Sewing!