SewHungryForMore: I heart ruffles!

Project Run and Play's sew along this week was a Valentines Day theme. I decided to make my oldest daughter a ruffle t-shirt dress with leggings and glitter shoes! Here's the overall look.

This picture shows the stretch leggings under the dress.
I made a pair of shorts and attached the lace so it would be more comfortable.

Here is how I made the t-shirt dress

I took a t-shirt I had pre-cut (front, back and sleeves) and altered them to make a dress. In the picture above you can see the front placed on a type of tracing paper/old interfacing. This allows you to measure exactly how long and wide you make the pattern. I have found this very helpful when making my own patterns. Anyhow, Use the ruller and angle it to create an a-line t-shirt dress (or even nightgown).

Above - shows the t-shirt pattern back ready to cut out and use. (Tip - make sure you layer the front and back views to make sure the front and back are the same length.)

Now lets plan for the Ruffles on the front of the dress:

Here you see the front view traced and ready to cut. I then placed it on my rotary mat and evenly measured all the ruffles. This helps with attaching the ruffles later as well as planning how much to cut for each row.

Tracing the Lines on the front of the dress to align the ruffles

After you cut out the t-shirt front, take a tracing wheel and tracing paper, using your rotary cutter, re-trace those lines. Now you have lines on the front of the dress to guide you as you sew each ruffle.

Now it's time to lay out your colors for the ruffles

Ok, this looks messy (haha) but this is how I laid out my strips of fabric for the dress to plan out each layer and how much fabric I would need. (basically measure the width of the dress and multiply by two or three to get desired ruffle look.)

Sewing your ruffles in place

Hopefully you can see the white line from the tracing paper. You pin each ruffle to this line and stitch down or zig zag down as I did. (If you want a more finished look, I would suggest hemming each ruffle BEFORE you sew it down to the front of the dress.)

VIOLA! Ruffles! I sewed from bottom to top and this was great because you didn't have the ruffle above you in your way as you sewed the next one. I used four materials. (A recycled red twin flat sheet, a recycled valentines day t-shirt print and two other knits that just matched the print.)

For the top of the dress, I did the regular t-shirt sleeves and I used a red ribbing for the neck. I also used some black ribbon and lace over the top ruffle for an added touch.

The leggings

I made a pair of "bike" shorts and attached the stretch lace to the bottom. This made it appear as leggings in the picture and for the look of the outfit but also allowed comfort around the waist. Below is a detail of the shorts attached to the knit.