Cheap Cheat’s Dress
Extract from Lazing on a Sunday Crafternoon • By Eliza Muldoon • Published by Murdoch BooksAbout
Lazing on a Sunday Crafternoon
Idea and inspiration
This was completely inspired by a little girl we saw at the park who was wearing a pretty dress with a white top and coloured, tiered ruffles on the bottom. ‘I could make that,’ I thought. I imagined creating tiers of gorgeous vintage fabric . . . but then I acknowledged my limitations and settled on this easier option. I love this idea though, and we’ve since made quite a few of them.
Variations
You can make them any length—shorter dresses have been better since the little one started climbing like a monkey. Grown-up versions work too!
Instead of a T-shirt, you could use a singlet; you can also make this dress using a coloured or patterned top.
- victoria.sorensen1 favorited Cheap Cheat’s Dress 25 Jul 17:00
- Murdoch Books published her project Cheap Cheat’s Dress 25 Jun 17:25
-
Step 3
To determine the size of the vintage bottom fabric, I put the t-shirt back on her and measured the length from the cut t-shirt edge to her ankles (adding a seam allowance at the top and bottom)—this was 50 cm.
To work out the width, I measured around the base of the T-shirt and added 20 cm. Make sure you jot down the measurements—I think I’ll remember them, but I usually don’t! Then I cut the fabric to size. -
Step 5
I folded the fabric in half, like I did with the T-shirt, and marked quarters in pencil—one on each side, one in the middle of the front and one in the seam at the middle of the back.
-
Step 6
I slipped the trimmed, pinned T-shirt upside-down into the fabric so that the right sides of the T-shirt and fabric were together and the seam was in the centre at the back of the T-shirt.
-
Step 7
One at a time, I matched the pinned T-shirt quarters with the marked fabric quarters and re-pinned them together. They were different sizes so it looked a bit wrong at this stage.
-
Step 8
To sew them together, I put a couple of little basic straight stitches at the first pin and, holding both pieces just before the next pin, I stretched the T-shirt until it matched the fabric evenly and then sewed that whole quarter. I then continued to sew the next quarter in the same way, and so on.
-
Step 9
To finish, I hemmed the bottom. (Though I only did this after I found out that you would see it!) I trimmed all the threads, turned the dress the right way out and I was done.
Note: I would suggest using a suitable stitch for jersey fabric. I don’t though, and it always seems to work out.