Girl's Tank Dress | Occasionally Crafty: Girl's Tank Dress

Friday, June 3

Girl's Tank Dress

My sister-in-law and her friend have this great sewing blog, Made on Maple, where they keep track of all their sewing projects.  They even have some great tutorials.

Most of the projects, frankly, scare me.  I'm pretty much a beginner sewer, though I could probably do more than I think I can if I would just try.  So, I visit the blog regularly for inspiration, and to dream about "someday".

Recently, Annee posted this cute tank dress that she made for my nieces, who are twins.  They are the same age as my daughter.  When I saw it, I knew this would be a perfect project for some of that fabric I got from Korea- mainly, because it seemed simple enough.  Here's what I made:


All I had to go on were these directions and a picture:

I measured across the bottom of the tank top then doubled it to get the circumference. Then, I double that figure. For example, I believe the circumference was 22, which meant I was going for a total for 44 inches across (in total). Since I was going to use 4 different fabrics I wanted to use, I think that worked out to be 6.6 inches wide per stripe (trying to take into account the amount of seam allowance I wanted). I believe I cut 
them 19 inches long. It fell right about to her knees, if not slightly below. I liked the length.

I didn't have any step-by-step pictures or directions, but it seemed fairly obvious how to construct it.  Once I had all my strips sewn together, I joined the two ends to make a circle.  I then gathered it to fit the bottom of the tank top.

(By the way, below is my new favorite sewing shortcut.  If you think gathering takes too long, or you have problems with your threads breaking, TRY THIS!  I don't know why no one ever taught me this before:)


Go here for the full tutorial!

Anyway, I finished off the dress with a pleated ruffle.  I simply sewed a piece of fabric into a tube, pressed it flat, then turned the ends under to finish them.  Then I pressed the fabric into pleats that were 3/4 inch apart, pinned it to the tank top, and sewed a straight line down the middle of the pleats.




I love how the dress turned out, and so does my daughter!  

Linking to some parties- go party along!

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7 comments:

  1. So cute...I don't sew (at all!) but I think I might be able to pull this off and make my little girl very proud of her momma...thanks for sharing!

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  2. Beautiful! Thanks for sharing with us at the Creative Bloggers' Party & HOp :)

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  3. The dress is precious and reminds me of one (or several) done a few years ago by a famous teeshirt designer from Spain: Custo Barcelona. Love what you did!

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  4. I would love for you to link it up to my party that is running now. Any linky goes.

    http://bacontimewiththehungryhypo.blogspot.com/2011/06/any-link-goes-party-running-now-summer.html

    Come strut your stuff.

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  5. I've got a few girls that would love one of these!

    Thanks for linking @'Sew Cute Tuesday'. I'll be featuring you tomorrow, so be sure to stop by and grab a 'featured' button!

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  6. Adorable dress! Is there a tutorial for how you did her hair?

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  7. @MandaThanks Manda! I got the hair from a website called Babes in Hairland. Here's the tutorial (though I just did twists instead of braids)

    http://www.babesinhairland.com/2009/01/braided-headband-shared-hairdo-spin-off.html

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