DIY: Circle Skirted Dress

Update: I have uploaded much better instructions for making these dresses here. I'm going to show you today how I make my circle-skirted dresses. These are pretty easy to make, which I suppose is why I've made so many of them! For example, here's four of my circle-skirted dresses below (and they're clearly fun to swish around in too): I'm not going to go through all the steps of the actual construction of the dress, because it would be a monstrously long post (and I'm pretty sure no one would bother reading it all the way through). I am, however, going to show you the main steps I go through in order to construct a circle-skirted dress, in hope of inspiring budding sewers (you will need basic sewing knowledge to do this, i.e. it's probably better if you've made a shirt/skirt before) to give dress-making a go, because this method takes the two easiest parts of making a dress and mashes them together. Basically, making this style dress consists of using any kind of cheap vintage store dress pattern to get a bodice and joining it up to a circle skirt! If you want to know what goes on in the making of these dresses, then read on... what you need 1. a pattern whose pattern pieces for the bodice are separate from the skirt 2. two fabrics which go together and/or clash (depending on what you want) 3. sewing equipment 4. a zipper of about 35cm length Making your bodice Take out your pattern pieces and find the front, back and interfacing (and collar if it has it) pieces. Put the skirt and the sleeve pieces back into the packet - you won't need them for this. Shorten the bodice pattern front and back if doesn't already stop at the waistline. The bodice only need be short! Place the pattern pieces onto your fabric and cut them out! Make sure to place the front bodice piece on the fold so that you get one piece instead of two (unless you want a zip/buttons up the front). Once you have your shapes, sew on the interfacing for the neck/collar. Place the front and back bodice pieces together (right sides together) and sew at the shoulders, and down the sides of the bodice. I get lazy with the armholes, and just fold them inside the bodice about half an inch, notching as I go, and sew them down (though if you can be bothered with armhole interfacing then do this instead - it'll look nicer inside the dress): If the back section is intact, slice it right up the middle. If it's already in two pieces, then that's good - this is where you need to insert your zipper. I am no good at explaining how to do a zipper. Just make sure that the zipper is a little bit longer than the bodice. Follow these steps, and, if you're lazy like me, don't bother with basting - just fold the material over at the edge, glue or pin to the zipper in the right place, and use a zipper stitch or foot (just moves the needle slightly to the left or right of the foot) to sew in the zip. You should have a little bit of zipper hanging out the end of the bodice. This will be hidden by the skirt later on. (Okay, so in the polka dot dress in the photos I continued the zipper into the skirt, but that is not what we are doing here today. We are only having the zipper go down the bodice and not the skirt, like on this dress:) Now you have a bodice. Iron flat the seams and the interfacing. Then put it aside and begin on your skirt. Making your skirt So I don't have to put all the steps here again, follow this tutorial I wrote for making a circle skirt, but stop just before the waistband-adding part. (The material need not be velvet, either. Use any fabric you want.) Then come back here. Attaching the skirt to the bodice This part seems a little bizarre at first but it works! Turn your bodice inside-out. Slide it over your skirt upside-down (skirt needs to be facing up and not inside-out). Pin together. If the bodice is too wide for the skirt, take it in at the sides until the two are just about matching in circumference. (Your skirt should be perfect for your waist measurement if you measured it right.)   Sew together with a normal straight stitch. Don't sew over the top of the zipper - but go right up to the edges of it. Turn the right way around and BAM! You now have a dress (if all went well!) Summary: Make bodice from a pattern. Make circle skirt. Attach the two. Oh man. That was actually probably completely confusing. If these instructions make sense to anyone, you're probably a genius, because I'm pretty sure they're really too stupidly convoluted. Well... enjoy anyway! If all else fails you can skim through the pictures and pretend you're reading a comic book about a sewing superhero. Update: I have uploaded much better instructions for making these dresses here. Hope you all have a marvellous weekend! xxx Annika