the dress assembly line

Jordan and I are only nineteen months apart in age. And we look alike. When we were little, nothing delighted me more than the thought that people would mistake us for twins. To increase the chances of this phenomenon, I often forced coerced sweet Jordan to “dress like twins” (aka- match). There may or may not have been tears and threats involved (tears on her part, threats on mine).

And actually, my fond affection for coordinating outfits remains. I often find myself making a whole batch of dresses at once. I figure that, since Piper Jane doesn’t have any sisters to ‘dress like twins’ with, we ought to make good use of her plethora of girl cousins, right?

On the possibly-too-frequent occasions where I am sewing a whole set of coordinating dresses, I create a Dress Assembly Line. It’s super efficient and you end up with a pile of coordinating dresses- fabulous, right?

In the off chance that y’all love matching outfits as much as I do (or maybe you’re sewing a whole batch of flower girl dresses right now? Because that is totally common…), I thought I’d put together a little Dress Assembly Line how-to. A warning, though- don’t try this unless you want the refrain in your mind to be “Making several dresses just takes a teeny bit longer than making one dress,” from now on.

Start with a fabulous, simple pattern. I used Leila and Ben’s Sweet Simple Dress Pattern.

Trace and cut out all of the body pieces and the sleeve pieces for all of your dresses.

Press all of the soon-to-be seams for all of the body pieces and the sleeve pieces (if the pattern you’re using calls for it).

Pin the sleeve pieces to one body piece, right sides together for all of your dresses.

Stitch the sleeve pieces to the body pieces.

Repeat to attach the sleeve pieces to the other body piece for all of the dresses.

Sew along the sides for all of the dresses.

Embellish each dress (if you please).

Finish off the bottom hem (it’s already ironed!).

Finish off the elastic casing for all of the dresses and pull the elastic through.

Add details (striping, pockets, buttons, etc.)!

YAY! Three or four coordinating dresses in no time at all. Like I said, this information is sort of helpful and sort of dangerous!