Firstly, thank you so much for all your fabulous suggestions. I took several of them and am already feeling a ton better. Which is a good thing since I had a wedding to shoot today… in the snow ha! I wonder how I have never heard of a Neti pot. Such a nice all natural remedy and I am pretty sure I have depleted all the hot water in our building
Thank you for your patience in waiting for this tutorial and pattern. You all know by now that I have a slight obsession with ruffles. I just love how absolutely feminine they are. The problem is they are a ton of work. So I set about trying to make a dress that worked as a petticoat of sorts and came up with the U R My Sunshine dress.
The white ruffle skirt underneath is actually completely separate from the rest of the dress so then you can make several different “over” dresses, which are super fast and east to make. I had a limited amount of the yellow fabric hence the turquoise portion. The other one I made her while creating this pattern is all one fabric. I will be sharing it after our valentines shoot
It is great for a beginning sewer because there are no sippers, buttons etc. Which Evie likes as well, super comfy and easy on and off!
The sash is simply a strip of fabric I serged. This gives the dress its shape. There is not a pattern piece for it. You can decided how wide and long you want yours. You definitely want one though. I wanted this pattern to fit a larger variety of sizes so with out it the dress will look pretty baggy.
What you will need:
2 yards fabric for your ruffle underskirt
2 yards fabric for the “over dress”
Thin Elastic for arms
Medium elastic for neckline and waistline
U R My sunshine pattern found HERE.
Once you have cut out your pattern pieces you will then need to cut out the strips for your ruffles. My ruffles were three inches wide but you can make yours as wide or thin as you like. If you make them thinner you will need more layers to cover the entire skirt. As far as the length goes I made mine about three yards long by sewing end to end and then gathered them. The longer they are the more volume your ruffles will have.
Step One: Hem the bottom of your ruffle skirt
Step Two: Hem your ruffle strips. Once hemmed use a gathering stitch across the top to ruffle them up. Once ruffled top stitch the first ruffle just above your skirt hem.
Step three: Topstitch the remainder of your ruffles, overlapping with the previous
Step Four: Fold the skirt in half so that right sides are together. Stitch up the side
Step Five: Hem the top of your skirt, leaving an opening to thread your elastic through.
Lay aside your finished ruffle skirt.
(Evie actually really likes this skirt by itself)
Step Six: Take your two “top skirt” pieces and lay them right sides together. Sew from one side of the arch all way across to the other side. Do not stitch the top at all. When done flip right side out and iron. Lay aside
Step Seven: Now you are going to attach your sleeves to your front and back pieces. This top is the normal generic elastic top. Make sure that you stitch them right sides together and you end up having what looks almost like a square
Step eight: Hem the sleeves then feed through your elastic. (I decided I wanted Evie’s to be flutter sleeves so I left out the elastic)
Step Nine: Once you have feed the elastic through and stitched the two ends together. With right sides together sew up the sides of the top.
Step Ten: Repeat this process for the neckline.
Step Eleven: Turn your top inside out. Now, we are going to attach the top to the bottom. One side of the bottom should overlap with the other. How much depends on the size of your child and the size that your top turns out. Overlap them enough that the bottom lines up with the top then stitch all the way around.
Step Twelve: Now you just need to create your sash and you are done! Slip the dress over the ruffle skirt and voila!
Now you just got to be careful you don’t loose your shoe
I can’t wait to share the other one I made… just got to get that shoot organized ha!
Cheers!
Kelly
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