Summer dress TUTORIAL

My first ever tutorial. I am sure it will be clear as mud...just ask if you have questions. Again, I consider myself to be a beginner in sewing experience even though I have been sewing a while. My lovely sister Jill helped me make this tutorial and she is the owner of this new cute dress! Click on the pictures to make them bigger, if you want. I just didn't want the post to take up the whole page with super huge pics.

1. Wrap the fabric around you and determine a comfy size. You don’t want it too tight. It needs to come over your head easily to take it off. But you don’t want it too big or it will look like you have just put on a tent. MEASURE YOUR BIGGEST PART. If you are a hippy chick, make sure you go around that area comfortably; if your bust is, then make sure around that part…it is imperative!!

2. Put right sides together to sew your side seam. You can finish the seam by serging (if you are lucky enough to have a serger) or you can zig zag stitch if you wish to prevent too much fraying in the wash.

Cut arm holes. I made mine about 3 inches across at the top and 4 inches down. You may have to adjust this a little bit depending on your size.


Cut a few slits in the curve to make hemming easy. Then fold and press it with an iron and press again to finish the hem. Stitch where you have pressed.

Next you need to make a casing around the top. I made one about 1 ½ inches. Press about ¼ inch and then fold over and press again to make your 1 ½ inch casing. Then stitch. Do this on the front side and back side of the dress.

Take a ribbon or string and feed it through the casing to see how long you will need your strap to be. Then cut a piece of fabric this length and about 3 inches wide.

With right sides together stitch your strip of fabric leaving the ends open. Then turn it inside out. (This step takes a little while.) You have got to jam your finger and shimmy it up---don’t you love my technical terms? If you have large fingers, you might want a pencil.

Feed your strip of fabric through the casing to make your straps.

Overlap them just a tad and stitch over that to close the ends and to make one big strip going through the casing. I think a zigzag stitch would work best here. You can then feed it so this part of the strap is inside the casing if you don’t want the stitch to be seen.

Last you need to make a hem. So measure how long you want the dress. Fold over about ¼ inch and press, then fold over about ¾ inch and press again. Stitch.

VOILA. Go out on the town with your significant other and expect to look hot and get tons of compliments.

Now be sure if you make this easy dress that you post on your blog about it and leave a link here so that we can see how awesome yours comes out. :-)