Dancing and Crafting: Sewing 101: DIY Shift Dress

First off, career update! Haven't updated this blog in a while but I was away performing at North Shore Music Theatre's production of Miss Saigon.

Anyway, moving on to the shift dress. I am in no way professional seamstress, just researched a few diy shift dresses online and here's what I came up with.

First, I folded the fabric in half so that the dress would be symmetrical. I got this fabric on sale from fabric.com and its Amy Butler's Lotus Wall Flower Cherry. Most of the diy shift dresses I found online didn't have a dart but I added a little fold just so the dress would sit a little better on the chest.

Here is a close up of the dart.

Then I laid a shift dress that I already owned on top of the fabric and traced out the pattern. I did the same for the back but left the dart out. I also cut a lower neckline for the front of the dress. After both pieces were cut, I just sewed them together with a basic straight stitch and finished the edges with a zig zag stitch.

I finished the neckline and armholes with bias tape that I made out of leftover fabric. This is what it looks like inside out.

If you decide that you want a sleeveless dress, all you have left to do is hem the bottom and you're done. I thought this dress would look cute with some cap sleeves so here's what I did.

Here's how I got the measurements for my sleeves. I measure all the way around my arm and then took off an inch. So for me, the length was 11"(length around my arm) minus 1"= 10". For the height i just measured from my shoulder to were I wanted the sleeve to end which in my case was 5". Make sure to include your seam allowances!