Ruffle Dress

Ruffle dresses are so trendy right now. I see them all of the time in stores, but can't get myself to buy one for $30 from Baby Gap when I know I could make one for much cheaper.

So I did...I made one. I used a pattern I had made for my daughter's summer dress to make a white dress out of jersey material. I didn't add sleeves to this one since I knew I wanted to add a cardigan I picked up on sale at Children's place to give it a splash of color.  You could use any pattern for this dress to give it the shape you want.

For this project, I used 3/4 yd of jersey knit fabric, 13 yards of lace, and 1 button. The total cost was just $12.30 but I already had the button.

After I sewed the dress, I pinned the lace on one row at a time. For the top rows I kept them closer together. I would pin 3 rows on and then sew them on using a zig-zag stitch to secure until I got to the bottom of the arm holes.

Once I got past the arm holes I just wrapped the lace around and around pinning into place, making sure to keep the rows evenly spaced. I sewed the rows onto the dress using a zig-zag stitch. The finished product looks complicated but it was actually pretty easy. The whole thing took me about 2 hours from start to finish.

Here is the finished product! A view of the front and then the back. It would be totally fine as a sleeveless dress but I prefer the cardigan over - I think it's the perfect touch.