How to Make a Girls Day Dress

in  this instructable, i will show you how to make your own day dress out of one piece of cloth.

I hope You Like It!!

This instructable isnt cheap, but not overly expensive. total it costed me about $30 or so for all the materials, however i DID strat this project FROM SCRATCH  with nothing on hand to use to make the project cheaper. if you have some of the items needed it could only cost $7-$15

Youll Need:

1) 1yd fabric of your choice (depending on the size of your daughter...i chose JUST enough for mine)
2) Matching color thread
3) Matching Color Ribbon (optional if your daughter is used to and can keep on a "tube top")
4) 6-8 Matching buttons
5) Fabric Tape Measure
6) Fabric Pen
7) Scissors
8) Button sewing accessories.

This project will take ~ 1.5-2 hours to make including prep time, but is well worth the time

The Particular fabric i used was a "smock" fabric that you would make a waist smock out ofthat has approximately 6" of the fabric stretchy at the top. I saw it in walmart today and was like...HONEY!!! i know something we could make for our daughter!! and showed her this. she liked the idea and thats what we went with.


So first your going to measure your daughter with the FABRIC ONLY to see if you will have to shorten the bottom half of the fabric to the dress dont consume your daughter...luckily mine has to grow a few more inches and she will fit right in it!!

Next your going to measure her chest to see how much fabric you will really need. As you can see in the pictures my daughter is ~19 inches around (i say ~ because she didnt want the world to know how big she was getting...but daddy won!!

The pictures below are of me wrapping my daughter in the fabric. The Last picture is her in a diaper while i got a better measurement (when she wasnt tossing and turning to stop me from getting her measurement...lol)

Now your going to take your measurement and measure out your fabric. add a little bit of fabric for seams and hems. Take your fabric pen/marker/pencil (or whatever your using to mark the fabric) and make a line as straight as possible all the way along the fabric. after this trim up both sides to be equal (unless you want everything below the elastic to be more...ummm...well full bodied perhaps? i guess thats what you could call it).

Now your going to pin up the sides and sew a hem with the zig-zag stitch. After you hem the sides, your going to pin those together, and then sew them together making the dress whole. if you decide you want to press the seam down with an iron, go ahead...i wont stop you...lol

The leftover seam will make up the back of the dress.

Now sew on your buttons. i used 4 buttons equally sewn apart. i then sewed the button holes the best i could to match the buttons. the top hole didnt turn out how i wanted it, but i learned from it.

Now is the time to see if the dres is long/short enough for your daughter. If its too long, shorten the skirt to your liking...if its too shor, and you dont have the type of fabric i used, then lengthen it as you see fit, however i dont think it will turn out looking good...when in doubt, make it too long so you can simply shorten it.

If your daughter is old enough that you feel she doesnt need them to keep the dress up, than you can skip this step.

With the dress on your daughter still, measure from the front of the dress centered somewhere near the nipples on one side, to the back just to the left of the spine (or right) about .5-1" and put a dot on that spot...that spot will be where you put the button. mark out the length of ribbon needed, put a spot on the ribbon and thats about where the button hole will go, and then make a small hem on the ribbon to keep it from fraying. after this, turn the garment inside out and sew the ribbon strips to the front.

*NOTE*: I am sorry, but i do not have pictures of the button hole sewing because my camera froze and corrupted the image rendering it useless.

Now you can enjoy watching your daughter romp around in her brand new dress that you made for her and take pride and brag about it when someone asks you where you got it from!!!


I hoped you liked this 'Ible!!! it sure was fun making it!!