Making Your Own Pattern

I often make dresses and things from my own patterns.  It is not as hard as it looks and you learn by trial and error.  If you mess up, oh well.  Just keep trying.  I've made plenty of things that didn't turn out or would never actually fit a real body.  If you are worried about it, but cheap remnants (like I do) or find someone who has fabric scraps you can practice with.  What have you got to lose?

Usually I take a dress that they already have and copy the pieces to put together.  This time I made my own because the only dress I have in this size is a baby size and I wanted a big one.   I'm sure some of you that read my blog have no intention of ever sewing a dress, so you can skip this if you want.  But for those of you who are curious to try, I hope this shows you that sometimes sewing without a store bought pattern can be really simple.  Go ahead and try it.

I'm sure that there are people who really know what they are doing and are cringing at how poorly made this dress is, but for now I just use the little knowledge I have and it works well enough.  It is a really simple design and uses only a few pieces.  You could easily make a dress for a child out of an extra yard of fabric you have.  Here is a rough pattern for the pieces I used. 

I took some measurements and made a pattern from some tracing paper that I had lying around.  This dress isn't really form-fitting, so you can make it as loose or tight as you prefer.  You can also adjust the length to what you want.  I used the extra fabric left over from the scarf I made not too long ago.

 You need two of the big piece, two of the smaller top of dress and four of the sleeve.
I started by sewing the sleeves.  I sewed around the two curved edges and then cut some slits around the edges so it has room to move when you turn it inside out.

I turned them inside out and did a top stitch over both seams.  You will see these stitches on the top of the dress, so use matching threads.

The sleeves are done, you can set them aside.  Now take the little pieces that fit on the top of your dress where it meets the collar. If you would rather, you can just fold your top piece down and sew it. I like the thickness of doing the second piece of fabric, so do whatever you want. I sewed my little piece on top and did a top stitch over it like I did on the sleeves. 

Now you pin together your sleeves onto the dress with the right sides together.  Sew the pieces together. 

  You have finished all of the hard parts and it's almost all done.  Sew up the sides of the dress.

Then sew the part under the sleeves between the bottom of the sleeve and the top of your side seam.  The fabric will want to fold over there naturally because of the seams you have sewn earlier.  Go ahead and fold it where it wants to fold and sew it on both sides.

The only thing left is to hem it up and embellish if you want.  My dress is a solid color so I added some texture by creating a ruffle for the front out of a long straight piece of fabric.  You can leaves the edges raw (since knit won't fray) but I folded the edges over and stitched mine this time. 

As you can see, my ruffle is not even really that straight. I was not so smart and I pinned it on crooked and had to take out the stitches and resew this part.  It still is not perfectly straight.  Oh well, you live and learn. She's only 7, who will care, right?  I'm just glad that I get to pick the length of the dress and don't have to worry about it being too short.  It always bothers me that they make little girls dresses so short.  I guess I'm a big prude.