Tuesday, December 13, 2011

A Christmas twirly dress-and a semi tutorial


I made this dress for Maressa to wear to her Christmas preschool performance and party today.
I used to make cute things for the girls to wear for every single holiday occasion.
 I've gotten lazy.
And honestly, Kalla is almost 8.5 and kinda past the cutsie holiday wear (however I did promise an applique tree shirt for her party this Friday) and Maressa gets all the tons of hand-me-downs from holiday past.
This year I made Maressa a new dress to match her personality.
Nothing fancy.
Just used a plain white tee from her closet and let her pick some fabrics from my old stash.

Sorry there is not a full tutorial on this particular dress.
For those who want to know how to make your own twirly 3-tier dress of your own, I can guide you through the process.

First start here for a regular t-dress tutorial.
To make it with twirly tiers, instead of one big skirt piece you'll need to cut 3 pieces. 
This can be all the same fabric or different ones.
You'll want to make the 3 pieces to add up to the length of dress you want.
For example, Maressa generally wears a 5/6 size store dress (I like them plenty long).
I made her 3 pieces with the length of 7" 8" and 7".  You'll need to account for .5" on each edge for attaching to the other fabrics, bottom hem and to the shirt.
For this dress, I did the top tier the width of the fabric...selvage to selvage.
For the next tier I did the width 1.5 times that width and the bottom 1.5 times the width of the middle tier.

So if for example your fabric is 40" wide you will need the following strips to make a 5/6 size dress:
7" x 40"
8" x 60"
7" x  90"
For the middle and bottom strips you will need to sew together pieces to make the widths.
**Adjust lengths to fit different sizes.**
To know how long it should be total, I use a dress out of her closet that fits like I want to get my total finished length.

Tips:
Start from bottom up.
Sew your bottom tier strips together, serge/overlock edges, then hem the very bottom.
Gather the bottom tier and sew to middle tier.
Gather middle tier and sew to top tier.
Now gather and sew skirt to t-shirt.
Serge or overlock edges as you go.
Topstitch tiers once finished for nice look and dress to lay nicely.
Now hand to your very happy little girl for much twirling pleasure!

3 comments:

zakkalife said...

Twirly dresses are the best!

Jenny Doyle said...

Gorgeous, thanks for sharing!

Susana Neiger said...

Adorable dress, and great how-to explanation. Thanks for the inspiration!

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