DIY Vintage Style Dress (& free pleated skirt pattern!)

I blogged about my new handmade dress very briefly the other day, and didn't really get to finish that thought because, well, I'd spent my whole day making a dress and forgot to do anything else important, and then suddenly was very busy and had to do ALL these things. So anyway, here's a proper blog post about my new dress (WHICH I MADE MYSELF, YAAAY!)

 Triangle keyhole cut out on the back... which was necessary because I couldn't get the dress on otherwise due to tightness around the top part. I think I shall cover it up with a big bow though ;)

Wearing:

Dress - handmade, fabric from Spotlight, vintage mustard thread.

Belt - Vintage

Green Blazer - Vintage

Shoes - Yesstyle.com

Tights - Forever 21

Bag - Wholesale-dress

Floral Headband - Handmade, given to me as a gift

Owl necklace- Wholesale-dress

This is how I made it.

The original plan was just to make a skirt, so I started off with this:

 The two big parts are identical in size, and will make the front and back of the skirt. The smaller piece is for the waistband.

I then hemmed the bottom of each big piece of fabric an inch (on the 33in side).

Then I added pleats. I didn't take a picture of this step with this skirt, but I did with ANOTHER skirt I made (so that is why the fabric in these pictures has suddenly morphed). You make pleats like this:

fold fabric together and pin

 sew along the pleat

 remove pins and repeat along the whole length of fabric

I then sewed the skirt together on both ends (along the 18in end) the wrong way around, then turned it inside out.

For the waistband, I folded the fabric in half lengthways (the wrong way around), and sewed along the edge.

I then attached the waistband to the front of the skirt by pinning and then sewing the pieces together.

I had some leftover fabric then, so I decided to make a top part and if it worked out, to sew it to the skirt. I can't really tell you what I did here, because I just made it up as I went along, and forgot to take pictures!! Also, it really didn't work out so well, because I forgot that I have breasts, and didn't leave any room for them. So the dress is very, very tight around the bust, and I wouldn't recommend using this pattern to anyone. But basically, for the top part I used a pattern something like this:

And sewed it together everywhere except the neck and armholes. I them hemmed the neck and armholes. Then I just kind of attached it to the waistband of the skirt, and hey ho, I had a dress!

And then I added a peter pan collar too :) The steps for this are too long for this blog post! But I will write a separate blog post JUST on how to make peter pan collars and attach them to dresses. In detail. I will! I promise. Watch this space.

Annika xxx