Sublime On A Dime: Summer Dress

If I haven't already meantioned this, I have 2 daughters. One is seven and the other is two with a brother inbetween them. I have never been one to dress them matchy matchy. I was thinking about this fact the other day and I decided I'm not against it. I think its just the age difference that I never really thought about it. Plus, I'm all for using the hand me downs for the younger girl.

So Since I have tons of this awesome blue fabric I thought I'd make a little summer dress for my two year old that matched the skirt I made for the seven year old.

Once again I used another dress she had as a template for width and height.

This dress kind of reminded me of a pillowcase dress only I added a little section at the top and obviously its not made out of a pillowcase :)

I'm sorry I didn't write down my measurements! I was just eyeballing it the whole time. Same as the skirt I hemmed all the raw edges. Then using the older dress as a template I cut off half circles on the top corners. I then, sewed a loose stitch across the top without going back and forth on the ends. Pull on one of the strings and gather the fabric. I measured from armpit to armpit on my daughter (which was around 6 inches) and gathered the fabric down to that measurement. Then stitch on the edges so that it will hold what you gathered. I did the same to both pieces.

Then with these pieces laying face to face I sewed up the sides.

Next I cut a piece out of the blue fabric. I cut it out a little wider then needed then gathered it in around the top until the measurments where the same as the yellow top. Pin the top to the bottom and sew together all the way around.

Iron seams flat and turn inside out you will end up with this:

Now for the straps.

I cut out two strip of the blue fabric around 2 or 2 1/2 inches wide. First iron the strip in half

Then unfold and take one of the halfs and folding toward the center in half again. Like below:

Now do the same for the otherside.

Now find your center point on the straps and sandwich the yellow fabric inbetween the straps. Starting at the middle of the armpit. Pin in place around the armpit and keep the strap pinned in half all the way up the rest of the fabric. Finally sew in place. Starting at one end of the strap all the way around to the other end. I also did a zigzag stitch on the ends of the straps to keep them from fraying. I really wanted to use the yellow fabric for this but ran out. oh well!