How To: Sew an Easy Toddler Fourth of July Dress

I love making Fourth of July outfits for my girls, and they love to be matching. Last year I was ambitious and made the girls matching headbands and star shirts.

I even attempted my first freezer-paper stencil project: a George Washington shirt for my son.

This year I was just going to skip it. But then it came to me! An easy dress idea for my girls that could come together in a snap (seriously: less than 30 minutes). Just what I needed.

FOURTH OF JULY DRESS TUTORIAL

Supplies:
1/2 yd of fabric (or more, depending on the size you are making)
1 white tshirt that fits your child
Length of Ribbon
Coordinating threads

1. Take the white shirt. Either have your child try it on, or if they don’t fancy being a model just guesstimate where you want the skirt to start. I wanted a higher, empire-like waist so cut my shirt accordingly.

2. Measure the width of your t-shirt. You want to double it and then add at least half to get the width of your fabric for the skirt (for the gathers – – add more if you want more gathers for a fuller skirt). So my little girls shirt was 11 inches wide. I cut my skirt fabric 30 inches wide by the length of the dress.

3.  Put your skirt right sides together and sew your side seam, making a tube shape for your skirt. I like to zig-zag stitch as well to make sure that seam is really secure.

4.Press your seam flat.

5.  Set your sewing machine stitch on the biggest setting and sew a gathering stitch around the top edge of your fabric skirt. Pull your threads until the fabric is gathered to about the same circumference as your tshirt.

6. Now turn your t-shirt inside out and match the bottom raw edge of your shirt with the gathered edge of your skirt. Pin with right-sides together around the whole skirt.

7. Sew your shirt and skirt together. You can follow that up with a zig-zag stitch if you want. Then pull out your gathering stitch thread and iron that seam flat.

8. Now that you have the body of the dress you can have your little girl try it on, or hold it up to a similar dress for an approximation of where you want the hem. Iron your hem , pin, and sew.

9. Now for the ribbon tie. I cut a length of ribbon that was definitely too long. I pinned it as centered as I could over the seam between the shirt and the skirt, pinning in the middle of the ribbon all across the front of the dress and just past the side seams of my t-shirt.

10. Start sewing your ribbon on as close to one edge of the ribbon as you can. Be careful to only sew through one side of the dress…it can be kind of tricky to make sure you aren’t getting any of the skirt or shirt underneath there so just go slowly and carefully.

Once you  go from one t-shirt side seam to the other lift your foot, keeping your needle down, and turn your dress so you are now sewing up the height of the ribbon. I went back and forth multiple times on this stitch to make sure it was a strong seam.

When you have finished that stitch, leaving your needle down, turn the dress so you can now start sewing down the other side of the ribbon.

Finish off the ribbon by sewing from the top of the ribbon to the bottom, going back and forth again to reinforce that seam.

11. Cut your ribbon to the desired length now, making sure it is centered on the dress. Fray check the ends of your ribbon, or lightly burn them with a lighter (to prevent fraying)

And there you go. An easy, adorable project!