$2 Fat Quarter Dress

Just last week, I made two dresses out two fat quarter pieces of fabric.  One for Penelope, and one for my friend Stacey (who had the awesome post this week about a great outdoor activity for a wild boy!) She is very close to giving birth to a sweet baby girl and I wanted to make her one of my pillow case dresses. 

I also made her a crinkly toy and earlier I gave her the too small shorts I made when making Penelope's jumper.

The baby girl's dress is about a 3-6 months if I had to guess.  I am not big on measuring, I just use an old dress and eye ball it.  One of the reasons I love pillow case dresses, they are so forgiving.

I got the fat quarter's at Joanne Fabric's for $1 each, when they were on sale. A fat quarter is simply a 1/4 of a yard of fabric, cut a certain way to be more square shaped than long and skinny.  This is what the fat quarter looks like all in one piece.

This is the other one.  I cut off the bottom panel to use on Penelope's dress.

Then I pinned and sewed the bottom panel to the one for Penelope.  It took me forever to figure out this part. I starred and starred at it, for like 30 minutes, and couldn't figure out how to sew it on in one line of stitching.  Then by the grace of God, when I was Joann Fabric's later that day, to get more pink ribbon, they had a sample dress on a manikin with this type of bottom and I was able to look at it and figure it out!

So you fold the long rectangle panel of fabric in half along the long side.  So the wrong sides of the panel are in the inside and the right side is on the outside.  Then pin the bottom panel to the big piece, right sides facing.

Then sew a straight line. If you have a serger, you could just do one line with the serger and be done.  But I don't have one, so I just use pinking sheers to finish.

The picture on the left is what it looks like on the back, the right is the front.

If you look down the middle, you have made a little tube.

Then I added a piece of pink ribbon, so I could coordinate the ribbon that I used for the straps and to coordinate the finished dress to baby girl's dress.  I am hoping that they still fit when get together again, I am sucker for matching outfits.

Then I sewed both rectangles together along the sides.  I put the fabric right side facing and sewed on either side.  Then turned it inside out.  At that point you have a big tube.

Then I made the casing at the top.  Fold the top down twice to your desired width, and make a tube with your fabric.  When you sew it, be sure to leave a hole open, to thread your elastic through.

Use a safety pin to help you thread your elastic.

Once you thread your elastic all the way through, sew your hole closed. This is what the top looks like finished.

Then I pinned the straps of ribbon to the dress.  I pinned them on either side of the elastic in the tube, so my stitching would line up with what I sewed already.

And ta-da!  This dress was the first dress I used without using a tutorial or pattern, so I was pretty stoked.

It's a little long on Penelope, but I wanted her to get plenty of wear out of it.  She is in the 97% for height and she always grows out of the length of her dresses before her chest.

Oh, those blue eyes.

What do you think?  Think you could make one too?