One-Hour-To-Sew Dress Tutorial

Yes, from start to finish (and I mean including taking these photos!), this dress took me 1 hour to make (I started at 12:50, and ended at 1:48). I have so many possibilities swimming in my head! Even baby-doll empire waist type shirts for myself. You see, the hardest part about sewing (for me) is the neck and sleeves. I can do it, but lets just say its at that point, every time, I get frustrated. I like sewing to be fun! And this was certainly fun!

I managed to take photos along the way. Unfortunately the pictures are not the best quality (I should have had my son do it!), but its good enough to get the idea.

First, you need a shirt and fabric. I purchased 1 yard of flannel for a size 3T (I don't know how to advise how much to purchase for a particular size, but take the roll of fabric at the fabric store, and unroll it until you think you have enough, and then purchase a little more ;) )

I made a dress from the shirt and fabric pictured above, but to follow is all the shirts and coordinating fabric that I have left to sew. Be creative - uniqueness is wonderful! I'm finding the most important thing with sewing is to wash, dry and iron the fabric before you cut and sew. Really, its that important! Its made a tremendous difference in the way my projects turn out.

Take the shirt and hold it up to your little girl (or yourself). Wherever the seam will look best, add about an inch (for the seam allowance), and cut across (see below). I like to fold the shirt in half and cut, so that the sides under the sleeve are the same. Once I unfold the shirt, I straighten the front and back if needed.
Take the fabric, and again hold it up to your little girl. Add about 2 inches from where you would like the hem to be - remember, its better to have too much fabric than too little! You can always cut a little more off, but you can't glue it back on!

Then VERY loosely stitch across the top of the fabric (I do it as loose as my machine will let me). Take one of the pieces of thread, and start gathering the fabric. I will warn you that flannel is not as easy as cotton! But it worked out fine, it just took a little more patience :) Gather it as much as will be needed to match the circumference of the shirt. In other words, gather the material, and then match both gathered ends together. With your fingers, pinch where the seam will begin (the seam that will be sewn down the back, to make a skirt out of the fabric), and match it up to the shirt. You may have to let a little gather out, or gather it a little more. Prepare to play with this for a little bit.
Once you have it right, sew on what will be the back seam (pictured below). One fabulous secret with flannel, is you can almost iron it with your hand! I was able to open up the seam as pictured below and just press it open with my fingers, and it stayed open. That was pretty handy and came in handy when I sewed the hem! When I made t-shirt dresses this past summer, I ironed the cotton, before I cut it, but also as I sewed - ironing all seams and the hem. I would not skip that step ever again when sewing with cotton, and possibly other fabrics. But with the flannel, I was able to skip that step.
Take your shirt and put it inside the fabric (pictured below). Have the fabric turned inside out, but keep the shirt regular (not turned inside out!). Match right sides together, and make sure the center of the back of the shirt is matched with the seam (pictured above). The seam will be down the back of the dress when finished.
Sew the shirt and the fabric together. Be patient sewing over the gathering. Its not the easiest part of sewing, but certainly not the hardest if you are just patient. As you will see below, my sewing is not the cleanest nor the straightest, but the job gets done just fine. I like to sew two times around for reinforcement (a toddler is wearing this afterall). I allow enough fabric, so that once the sewing of the shirt to the fabric is done, I can trim around it to make it look a little neater.

Then its time to hem the dress (oops, I didn't take a picture of that!) I do that with the machine as well. I like to double-fold the fabric before sewing. In other words, I fold the fabric up, and then fold it up again, so you don't see the frayed edge. Pinning isn't a bad idea, and I did that when I ironed the cotton, but because the flannel stayed put so well, I didn't pin it this time.

And there you have it! You're done!

Some pictures of the finished dress:

I'd say I have a happy customer!

A Lovely Easter

Easter was lovely, despite having a few kids with boogery noses. After the kids quickly looked at their little gifts, we all got ready to leave by 7:30 a.m. Turns out we didn't need to leave so early as the 8:00 a.m. service wasn't all that crowded. The boys stayed in church with us, and I learned a valuable lesson. I thought they were being so antsy, and being that it was an Easter service, the Gospel was presented (actually, our Pastor presents the Gospel every week), I was heartbroken thinking that many would not be able to pay attention, and hear these life-saving words! I learned that it has nothing to do with me - when its God's time - its God's time, and 2 antsy boys won't stop Him! At least 5 people were saved just during this not-heavily-attended service. Praise the Lord!

We celebrated the resurrection of our Savior with our church family. Our Pastor spoke from Luke 18:31-34, where Jesus took his 12 disciples and explained that He would be mocked, spit upon, beaten, put to death and then rise again on the third day. But that (v. 34) they didn't get it - it went right over their head! These were Jesus' disciples who walked physically with Him and who knew about the Old Testament prophecies that said this would happen! Pastor asked us to think about those things which Jesus wants us to do, yet we don't get it. Boy, I can think of many things - its sobering. I'm convicted to pray and dig in the Word, and do what it takes to get it. He went on to say that after Jesus rose from the dead, and returned to His disciples - that they did get it, and many died martyrs' deaths because they would not keep silent about their Lord. Wow. They certainly did get it.

We then went to my parent's to celebrate our Savior's resurrection with them and my brother and his family. It was fun, and the food was delicious! We had ham, mashed potatoes, rolls, asparagus, baked brussel sprouts (yum!), followed by carrot cake. It was delicious, Mom! After dinner, we were all pretty tired, so we watched Polar Express - what you think that an odd movie for Easter? Well, its C's favorite movie, and that is just what we do when we go to Grammie and Grampie's! I tear up through the whole movie - because whenever C and I cuddle, he loves to hum the Josh Groban/Polar Express song to me.


Here's a few pictures of us - yup, the boys matched and so did M and I. I made M's dress, and used some of the fabric I had left to make a skirt for myself. It was fun to match with my daughter - the boys match nearly every Sunday - a little tradition Daddy and O started when O was about 2. I plan on making a bunch of jumpers for M for summer, and I think I'll get a nice skirt pattern and make a bunch of skirts with the same material from M's jumpers. Anyway, enough blabbing, here's the pictures:

Crazy Hat Day

My son is having Crazy Hat Day at school soon. Although he has what I would consider a few crazy hats already, he asked if I'd make him one. How could I resist? Here's what I made:His mouth is a little funny because he has a tooth barely hanging on by a root, and he keeps pushing it with his tongue.

A little close-up of the moon's face. I love sewing faces because no matter what you imagine and aim for, it always takes on a life of its own. The other side isn't as dear as this side is to me.

Little O got the idea of a sleep cap from one of his favorite movie's Thomas' Magic Railroad, and as soon as the hat was done, he ran downstairs with his cap on to play trains.

Of course, now I have to sew one for C and M. I have no plans to go out in this frigid weather, and sewing will be a perfect plan for the week.

Have a blessed day!