Super Simple Summer dress tutorial

A friend of mine sent me a picture of a fabric from our favorite Joann Fabrics Store because it made her think of Lizzy. It was super cute so I decided to follow her lead and make a dress out of it! Thanks Stacy!

Here's how I did it...I'm sure there is an easier more technical why to do it but that's not how I roll!

First, I drapped the fabric (on the wrong side) around her and pinned it to fit her perfectly.
Then, I simply sewed a straight line...I had to lay the fabric out flat to pin it because of the smocking on the top half.

Notice the double line stitching...there's a reason

I always make sure to have the kids try anything on that I am making...I would hate to get further in a project and realize that it didn't fit to begin with. I had L try it on after my first line of sewing and good thing I did...it was so big it slipped right off of her. Even with straps it was going to be too big.
Once I took it in just a bit more I moved on to the straps!

I had a horrible time selecting matching fabric for this...there was nothing that looked right. So I decided to try and think outside of the box, not easy for me to do! I went with a pretty green print(there's a little green in the bottom of the dress)

I cut two 2 inch strips from the green fabric...

ironed it in half with the right sides facing each other...

and sewed a little less than a quarter  inch from the edge of the fabric.

I used a safety pin to pull the fabric so the right sides showed.

I'm sorry but I totally forgot to get a picture of this...but all you have to do is attach the pin to one side of the fabric and just work the pin through the "tube" of fabric until it's totally flipped inside out.



It was such a thin strap that it was hard to get it to lay flat, so I used a pencil to push out the seam and then ironed it flat.

Again, I had Lizzy do a fitting...just like a real princess!

I positioned the straps and pinned them...the dress is on inside out so that I could pin them on the side I would be sewing them.

Another run through the sewing machine and a few areas that needed trimming and...

a complete Super Simple Summer dress!

She had so much fun twirling and whirling around the room...in her Ariel dress-up shoes of course {Thanks for those too Stacy!}
I'm so happy that she loved it....now this fabric comes already smocked {BONUS} but is pretty costly... $0.49 an inch. It is great because there is no hemming I needed to do...which is great for me. And I'm sure I wouldn't be able to buy an Ariel dress for much cheaper anywhere else.