how to sew a simple girl’s dress

Piper loves to look through my fabric. I don’t have a ton here in Saipan, so it’s a short exercise, but it always (always!) ends in a request for a dress (or a stuffed unicorn) using whichever fabric she loves most that particular day.

Now, these dresses-and-unicorns hardly ever come to fruition (the girl wears a school uniform every day!), but last week we had an entirely open afternoon, so I agreed to begin working on a dress with no promises about when I might finish it up.

Turns out, this dress is super fast to put together, reversible (aka- uses two of the fabrics that she loves instead of just one), and Pi is in LOVE! It rarely works out like that for me (usually things take wa-ay longer than I anticipate and don’t impress my kids nearly as much as I think they will), but I sure do love it when that happens. Also, I love sharing this kind of info with you (if you have any ‘this worked out better than I thought and only took a couple hours’ sewing projects, I expect you’ll pass those right along to me as well, right?).

How to sew this simple reversible dress-

Grab an A-line dress from your recipient’s closet. Trace the dress onto butcher paper to make a pattern (mostly concentrate on the skirt line, the length, and the neckline). On the pattern, extend the sleeves up an extra six inches, with a tapered end.

With your fabric folded in half, cut out a dress front and back in two different fabric kinds of fabric (use the same pattern for all four pieces).

Stack the front and back ‘dress’ sides (of the same fabric) together, right sides facing each other. For both sets, sew up the vertical edges, starting at the bottom of the skirt and ending at the arm hole.

Turn one ‘dress’ right side in. Slip this dress into the neck hole of the still-inside-out ‘dress.’ Line up the sleeve ties, necklines, and arm holes and begin pinning in place. The right sides should be facing each other. Sew along the entire top perimeter of the dress (the armholes, the necklines and the sleeve ties).

Turn the dress right side in. You should now have a reversible dress with an unfinished bottom hem.

Turn the bottom edge of each side of the dress up and press in place (as the raw edge is turned under, it is also being tucked into the middle of the two layers of dress). Try to match up the hems as much as possible as you press.

Sew around the entire bottom hem, finishing the bottom edge.

Done! Check your time (awesome, right?).