>The Prairie Dress

>I call this the prairie dress because it reminds me of “Little House on the Prairie” I loved that show growing up. And I’m sorry I don’t have step-by-step directions, see my serger and I got into a HUGE fight. I’m surprised she survived. So this dress I was hoping to finish in a day or two took almost a whole week and LOTS of anger, a few needles, and lots of extra thread. But I think it came out well (Thanks to the lovely Linda at Hancock Fabrics!). Princess wants the sleeves to be more floofy (how much floofier can they get?)
A quick run down of the dress:
I started out with a big men’s dress shirt. Then since there was no pattern there was lots of trying on. I estimated where I should cut for the sleeves (you could use another shirt that fits, but I just eyeballed it, I’ve been making lots of sleeves lately) Then I cut off the lower part of the shirt. I ran a quick stitch across the top of the bottom of the shirt (the piece I had just cut) and used a long width and low tension so I could ruffle it. I took the already made sleeves and just cut them shorter, then across the top of the arm whole I also ruffled. Then I attached the sleeves on the shirt. Then I attached the bottom making sure the buttons lined up. Then for the neckline I used some extra fabric, cut it 4″ wide, and iron it in half, then folded each of those halves in half again, and stitched it on. Then I had her try the dress on again (by this time I thought she was going to scream at me) and that’s when I fixed the collar so it would lay flat. Oh, and I also had removed the pocket from the original shirt and added it lower on the dress. Wheew, if anyone actually wants step by step direction with Pics, I suppose I could try to make another one, maybe a smaller one… Just let me know.
Enjoy!
And it twirls (which Princess loves!)