Friday, October 21, 2011

Refashion: Zebra Dress

Ok, I actually made this a while ago but I forgot to post it, so here goes!
The Zebra Dress:

This was the original.  It's a pajama shirt that I just never wore.
I actually got the idea from Zulily.com with this dress:
I'd say it turned out pretty similar.
Alright well here's how I made it.
1. I decided to do the back of the dress in 2 pieces made up of the front of the shirt, and then the front of the dress was made with only one piece from the back of the shirt.  I measured out the panels(big rectangles) and cut them out.
*Note!! I made sure to cut it so that the bottom of the shirt would be the bottom of the dress so that I wouldn't have to do a hem later because it was already hemmed*

2. I stitched my 2 back pieces together but left about 2 inches of it "unstitched" because that is going to be the opening at the back of the dress. I then finished off the seam with a zig-zag stitch.
3.I sewed the front piece to the back by putting them right sides together and sewing up the side.  In order to make the armhole I backstitched about 2 inches down from the top of the front piece.  I then reinforcement stitched(1 mm) the edge of the armpit and turned it under then edge stitched that down.
4.I then did the same thing to my opening at the back of the dress. This is what that looked like:
5.Next I went to the shoulder pieces. For the front of the dress, I cut out 1 U shape of 2 different fabrics, one for the outside and one to line it.
6. I then sewed the 2 pieces together with right sides together, but left one edge unsewn so that I could turn it right-sides out later.
7. Before turning it right-sides out, you need to press your seams open so that it will turn correctly.  Next I cut out 2 half-U-Shaped pieces to make up the back shoulder part like so:
8. I repeated steps 6 and 7 for these 2 pieces.  I sewed my 2 half-U-shapes onto the full U-shape piece.  Once this was done, I gathered the tops of the Zebra print parts of the dress and attached them to the shoulder pieces by topstitching all the way around the circular pieces, making sure that the back edges matched up.  I folded under the raw edges of the back pieces and topstitched those parts too.  I attached a hook and eye and the dress was finished!

3 comments:

  1. Kristin, you are so amazingly talented. I love seeing your projects.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You're a whiz, Kristin! Enjoyed the fashions for baby boo! Love you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you so much! and I love you too gmother!

    ReplyDelete