June 22, 2012

If you can’t find it… SEW it! {Easy Dresses}

That’s right people, Dresses SEW so easy I could even make one!

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First I’ll give you my background in sewing….

- I watched a YouTube video to learn how to string a Brother machine that a friend gave me back in SD.

- I can hand sew a button to a shirt

- I have watched my mom sew since I was a little girl

Well, that’s it! Seriously, no lie, I have never taken a class in my life. Not even in middle school when we had to choose our elective classes, there was sewing class and wood shop, I choose wood shop.

When I came across a dress like this on pinterest I was completely taken by it. I love the simplicity and the length of it. You can find dresses like this but they are always way too short for this married gal. My sisters can pull them off being 21 but as {G} would say, “Please dress your age… jean shorts and short short dresses are not necessary”.

I was intrigued so I clicked on the picture to see how it was made by going to this girls blog and that was it, a super easy tutorial on “How to” make this dress and after reading it over and over I thought to myself, I can do this! Plus as stated in previous post, I have few friends here in Iowa so this is a great project to replace human contact.

I’m not going to go step by step through how to make the dress since LeAna over at A Small Snippet does such a wonderful job of doing so.  I will, as always, just put in place what things I changed and what may help others trying this project. I will say before hand I am 100% satisfied, LeAna was right, this is super easy!

A Small Snippet

{ My fabric }

I went to Joann’s and found two cute prints. The blue was just to great to pass up for a summer dress! I just love the color and will pair it with a grey laced tank top like in the picture above. The second fabric has poppy flowers on it! How could I resist! It’s more a spring color but who cares, I could rock it all the way through Fall if I add a brown belt and brown cardigan.

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I made it through all of the steps with making the box-y skirt and then hit a road block when it came time to put an elastic seam around the top of the skirt. I read LeAna’s blog on how to thread the machine correctly and it just was not catching the elastic thread. So… I read another blog… and another about using elastic thread. It took me about an hour off course but FINALLY I got the thread to start working!

* Even with the elastic thread my skirt was way too lose so I took the tip LeAna gave about Ironing the skirt so the elastic becomes tighter. It did but was still way to loose so I added a step by making pleats at the top and then running the elastic through it again. This solved my problem and made the skirt fit properly.

Adding pleats

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By adding a few small pleats at the top it shrunk the waist band more to fit

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Skirt test run #1 ( Too put on the skirt it has to be put on over my head, it is too narrow to put on from my feet over my hips )

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Butt Rear shot

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After I was able to do this properly I wanted to see if I had cut the tank top to the correct length so I tried it on.

{Not sewn together yet}

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Does anyone else have problems with taking behind photos? 

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My tank top was still a bit longer then I liked so I took another inch off using my fabric cutter. My FAVORITE cutting tool ever! 

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After this I followed the instructions on how to sew on the top.

*Make sure that when you are sewing these together that your matching the seem from the skirt to the back of your tank top. You don’t want the seam to end up in some random spot on the dress.

Sewn together!

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Front Side Shot

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Before I made the sash I tried it with a thick brown belt and my boots! LOVE!

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After I went back to the sewing table and made my sash for a more completed dress look

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Ugh… I hate bad back shots but here is what it looks like with the sash from the back

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Finish it up by adding some cute boots to the mix!

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Thanks to LeAna for putting this tutorial up on Pinterest! I am so pleased with the dress that I sent a photo to my Best friend to ask if I could make it in brown for my brides maid dress this Fall. She is having a laid back wedding and told us girls to just find a brown dress and wear boots.  I have search far and wide and couldn’t find what I was looking for until now!

I am so excited to make my blue dress and start the search for some great brown fabric to make my brides maid dress. Hope you all love the dress too and if you are daring for an easy first sewing project this is the one!

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