Dress Success!

I did it! And I'm so stinking excited! I made a wearable dress! This was less of an on a whim type of thing. I saw a dress online that I liked and then I drew it out and broke it down in to pieces. My dress doesn't look like the original one because I used a totally different type of fabric, and I changed a few things, but it was a great starting point.

I used a knit fabric that I found at JoAnn's on red tag sale. I'm normally not an animal print type of gal, but, I thought I could make some really cute leggings for my girls. Once I went to get it cut there was only like 3 yards on the bolt so I just decided to buy it all. Yay for that decision because now I have a new dress!

To make this dress I used some of the same, successful, techniques that I used to make my first dress. I took my measurements and measured the the space between the dress collar and where I wanted the top piece to end. Then I took my hip and length measurements. Both pieces were rectangles cut to match my measurements. The sleeves were rectangles cut to the length I wanted and the width of my upper arm. To make the collar I folded my top rectangle in half and then cut out a piece.

When I opened it up it looked like this:

Then I just pieced everything together and sewed it all up. 

I ended up cutting my collar space too big so I made a facing for it and then threaded elastic through to pull it up.

finished collar

I also added elastic to the portion just under the bust to pull it in more so it would be fitted and less bag like. I have so many ideas for cute summer dresses I just need to find the right fabric. I seriously love sewing! :o)