I’ve been in a sewing mood as of late, and I have a TON of fabric and patterns sitting around. One fabric I’ve had since my early teen days is a blue cotton with white stars. For a while, I thought I would use it to make cradle sheets for baby girl, but I never got around to it. I’ve seen some neat one piece romper ideas lately, and I’ve seen some cool 4th of July t-shirt painting ideas – like this one I’ve Pinned from Cutsey Crafts and this dress from The Thrifty Craft Junky. So, I began sketching, and I came up with the idea to the right.
I ultimately decided that I wouldn’t do the white and blue ruffle at the bottom – that it would be too much, but here’s how I created something for my little lady to wear on the Forth of July.
I began with a Gerber Onesie™, and the blue fabric. I wanted the skirt of the dress to appear full, so I knew I would need to cut the fabric a good bit larger than the one piece. So, I measured the width of the romper, and multiplied by two, measured, and cut two rectangles from the fabric. The reason I did that, and not cut one piece four times the width of the body, was so that the seams would match up with the bodice of the dress on the side.
My next step in creating the baby 4th of July dress was to sew together my squares. I didn’t bother to pin the two pieces of fabric together, since the fabric itself wasn’t slippery, but if you’re new to sewing on a machine, that is something you may want to do. I then sewed a straight line down the two shorter sides of the fabric – right sides together (the sides that will face out on the finished dress).
Next, I pressed open the seams using a hot iron. I then folded the raw edges of the fabric in on themselves, and pressed them in before pinning so that I could stitch down the seam to prevent unraveling. You can also do a zig-zag stitch along the raw edges of the fabric. Unfortunately, the picture I took of this step came out a blurry mess. Either way, you’ll want to make sure that the edges of your fabric don’t come undone while the baby is wearing the dress.
I then basted the top edge of the dress, pulled the basting thread to the width of the skirt, and then evened the gathers out around the top of the skirt. Since I planned on covering the area where the skirt meets the bodice with a ribbon, I didn’t worry too much about getting this perfectly straight, but I aimed for close. I wanted a drop waist, inspired by dresses from the 20s. I lined up the skirt with where I wanted it to fall on the bodice, with the right sides still together, the top of the skirt facing the snaps and the bottom of the skirt facing the neck. I pinned the skirt in place and sewed a straight line all the way around.
Once I had done this, I flipped the skirt down, so that it lay like it was supposed to, and ironed it in place as you can see on the right. Wining Husband has the ironing board set up in the bedroom, and there is no room for it in the sewing room/office, so I spent a good part of the evening going back and forth between rooms to iron and then sew. Once I had the dress flat and pressed, it was time for a fitting so that I could mark where the hem would go.
I slid the dress off Baby Girl while carefully pinching the hem in place (this took some talent). Then, I flipped the dress upside down, and I folded the hem up around the skirt, until it was even. I pressed the hem in using an iron. Then, I folded the raw edge and pressed and pinned that to create a straight, finished line. I sewed a straight line using the sewing machine to keep the edge from fraying. Then, I pinned the hem in place and used the blind hem stitch. Ashley has a great tutorial for using a sewing machine to hem at Make It & Love It – and she explains it far better than I could here.
After I finished the hem, and I pinned the ribbon in place, I looked and looked – and realized that I did not have the red thread I thought I had! Thus, I will have to make a trip to the fabric store and pick up some thread to finish the dress!
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Very charming post… (Reminds me of how my mother used to sew). Thank you!
I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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