Cheeseburger Dress

Make your own cheeseburger dress at fast food prices! Unlike that fancy crocheted hamburger dress (admittedly the inspiration for this one), all you need to make this dress are basic sewing skills and items found cheaply, easily and locally.

You will need:
- a long tan camisole (Since this will become a dress, make sure it comes down to at least the middle of your hips. Also, err on the side of it being slightly too large as it will have to go over your hips entirely in the end.)
- felt* in white, yellow, red, and green (or, as my craft store called it, 'pirate')
- brown fleece* (for texture), or any other brown fabric you have lying around
- tan or white puffy paint
- scissors, needle, thread, and preferably a sewing machine**

*Fleece and felt will not make you look svelte. They will make a great looking burger, though.

**You can substitute a glue gun for the needle and thread if you don't trust your sewing abilities, are in a hurry, or enjoy stiff, inflexible seams. You can also substitute duct tape in various colors for all of the materials if you are a big Red Green fan.

I chose felt for this project because it is cheap, comes in a variety of colors, and holds its shape. The easiest topping to make is the cheese. Simply cut the corners off of the yellow felt. Keep in mind how big you'll want them to be on the dress and how many cheese corners you want to show.

Find a large circular object you can trace (such as an IKEA mousepad) and make a circle on the white felt. I chose to trace in purple so the onion would have a little color on the edge. Cut, fold in half, and cut out the center. You can make more rings from the center if you wish. Cut these roughly in half when you're done.

This is the most involved topping to make, which really isn't saying much. Take your large circular object, trace it, then draw some wedges on it. Cut out the circle and the wedge-shaped holes, taking care not to be too precise, else it will look like a red wagon wheel. When you're done, cut it in half.

Felt is not known for its soft, supple nature or its ability to make beautiful, flowing ruffles. You can either use this cheap 'n' easy method, or do it the hard way and get a ruffly material for your lettuce. Draw a squiggly shape on the green felt (or don't) and cut it out. Then, cut it into two or three squiggly shapes. You may have sacrificed beauty for efficiency, but everyone will still know you're a burger.

Puffy paint, the favored fabric writing medium of the early 90's, makes its comeback as the sesame seeds on your dress. Just make several droplet-shaped blobs on the top half of the front of the dress, let dry, and repeat on the back.

It's time to cut the shirt in two. Your shirt, like mine, probably has one of those irritating built-in bras, but it actually makes a good guide for cutting. Just cut an inch or so below the bra. Still, you should put it on and at least roughly measure.

Fleece tends to have one direction that is stretchier than the other. Hold the fleece with the stretchy direction horizontal and wrap it around your waist while wearing the bun halves spaced as you will want them in the end. Mark or fold the fleece to the right height, then mark how wide you will need it at the waist and hips. I have relatively large hips, hence my fleece patty was slightly conical. Cut this shape and sew it into a tube/cone.

Pin at least the top bun and patty together and sew. I used a zig-zag stitch with good results. If you're feeling fancy, pin the veggies into that same seam and sew all at once. (I did this with the lettuce and onion on the front.) Otherwise, hand sew them on by making a few loops every so often -- don't baste all the way across as it will look funny and wrinkly.

I thought sewing the bottom of the dress would be the most challenging part, but it actually wasn't so bad. Just make sure you pin it on the front, back, sides, and then put one more pin between each of those pins. The fabric didn't bunch up on me at all when sewing, despite the disparity of sizes of the bottom of the patty and the top of the bottom bun. Once you're done with this, you have a completed hamburger dress! But, for an additional 30 cents of felt, you can upgrade to a cheeseburger. Hand sew the cheese triangles in the same way as you sewed the tomatoes.

Your cheeseburger is now ready to wear as a shirt or a dress. I came to like the shirt look better, but enjoyed the versatility offered by it also being dress-length. The whole thing cost me about $10.

Sorry this is a bit late for those of you who want to make it for Halloween 2008, but I hope it will inspire you for next year!