Utah County Mom: Ruffle dress

Ruffle dresses are so trendy right now.  I see them all of the time in stores, but can’t get myself to buy one for $30 from Baby Gap when I know I could make one for much cheaper.

 So I did…I made one.  I used the pattern I had made for

Lily’s summer dress

 to make a white dress out of jersey material.  I didn’t add sleeves to this one since I knew I wanted to add a cardigan I picked up on sale at Children’s place to give it a splash of color.

After I sewed the dress, I pinned the lace on one row at a time.  For the top rows I kept them closer together. I would pin 3 rows on and then sew them on using a zig-zag stitch to secure until I got to the bottom of the arm holes.

Once I got past the arm holes I just wrapped the lace around and around pinning into place, making sure to keep the rows evenly spaced.  I sewed the rows onto the dress using a zig-zag stitch.  The finished product looks complicated but it was actually pretty easy.  The whole thing took me about 2 hours from start to finish.

 Here is the finished product!  A view of the front and then the back.  It would be totally fine as a sleeveless dress but I prefer the cardigan over – I think it’s the perfect touch.

 I had a really hard time getting a decent picture of Lily once she had her dress on.  Eventually I let her read one of the

board books

I made to keep her still for a second.

 Isn’t it adorable?  I made it a little long so it will fit her all spring and hopefully the summer too.

For this project, I used 3/4 yd of jersey knit fabric, 13 yards of lace, and 1 button.  The total cost was just $12.30 but I already had the button.

Questions I have received about this project:

1.  Did you cut each piece that goes around or do you have one continuous row that goes around and around?  For the pieces above the arm holes I pinned it in place and cut each piece (leaving it a little bit longer on each side) when it got to the arm hole.  After I got past those arm holes I just went around and around.

2.  How do you attach it at the neck and arm holes?
At the neck, my lace had about 1/2 an inch of lace at the top that looked different than the bottom half which is the part I sewed to attach it to the dress.  I folded that top part to the inside of the dress at the neck and then pinned into place. (pictured below)

I then sewed along the neck line using a 1/8 inch seam allowance (to the inside of the presser foot) (pictured below)

At the arm holes, I folded the remaining lace I had left extra at the arm hole inside of the arm hole and pinned. (Pictured below)

I then sewed around the arm hole using a 1/8 inch seam allowance (to the inside of the presser foot)  (pictured below)

Have any more questions?  Just email me and ask!