Sunday, March 15, 2015

Easy Spring/Summer Dress

The other day my sweet friend invited Santi over for a play date. Instead of cleaning my house or cooking dinner like I should have, I looked up fun DIY craft ideas online. I found a SUPER cute dress idea here. I am not a seamstress, in fact I can not sew a straight line. I do have a sewing machine that is almost entirely used for sewing holes in pants. The girl who wrote the tutorial said "I might even venture to say that it's one of the easiest sewing projects I’ve ever done." That sentence is basically the only thing that made me keep reading, because again, I am not a seamstress! When someone says a sewing project is super easy and then I see button holes and other sorts of craziness my eyes glaze over and I click out! This dress actually seemed doable, so I decided to give it a shot. I have a really hard time finding dresses that are actually long enough! Im only 5'9", but for some reason pants and skirts are almost always made at the average length, 32". I wear 34". 2 inches doesn't sound like a lot, but skirts always hit at just too short. So, all that to say, I was excited to be able to possibly make a long skirt actually long. But if you are short and skirts are always too long, you could make it the perfect length too.

I went to Old Navy were they were having a Spring sale, so all their ribbed tank tops (that fit perfectly) were on sale for $5! WIN #1! I then went to Hobby Lobby and found cute fabric for 30% off! WIN #2. I did have to buy some elastic thread for a whole whopping $1.59. The whole dress cost me about $15. Pretty great, if the dress looks decent!



Old Navy ribbed tank top and enough fabric to wrap around you 1.5 times. 
My stride is pretty long, so I think next time I would wrap it around me twice instead.

Thankfully this dress is long & has a pattern so you can't tell my lines aren't straight!

After hemming the top and bottom of the skirt I then cut the tank top at the length I wanted and pinned it to the skirt. The elastic thread part totally didn't work for me. It was supposed to ruffle the fabric and for some unknown reason it did not. I'm sure I did something wrong, but I have no idea what! SO, I just ruffled it myself as I pinned. I'm still glad I used the elastic thread though as it did give the fabric some give.

I then sewed the two together.

Right when Luca woke up from his nap I made my last stitch! I was SO excited...until 
I turned the skirt right side out. I SEWED THE TANK TOP ON
 INSIDE OUT! See, I told you I don't know how to sew!

I got to stare at my pretty dress all evening, half of it inside out!

Once the boys went to bed I began ripping the thread out.

Then I ripped some more!

Heres a tip. Do NOT turn your tank top inside out. The skirt goes inside out, not the tank top!

Skirt inside out, tank top NOT!

The finished product! I added a little sash to cover the zig zag sewing lines! Maybe one day I will learn to sew straight, but if I find cute dresses like this, maybe I'll never need to learn!

If I can sew this in an hour and a half (if you skip the ripping apart and re-sewing), 
Im sure a normal person can do it in under an hour!!

I wore my dress to church this morning! Ahh! It didn't break or fall apart! The very best part is that I got to wear heels with a long dress! If you look closely you can see a little head peeping out from behind me on the left. Hi Santi!

I made the sash longer. I think it looks much better!

I sewed a whole entire outfit that I actually wore! Happy spring y'all!


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