Achievement Unlocked: Tales of a Geeky Stay-At-Home Mom: Superman Dress

Yesterday's project was a first - I patterned a toddler dress! I have a bunch of Superman fabric in my stash, and there were two pieces that were screaming to be put together, same pattern but different colors. So I decided that Miss A needed a Superman dress, with one color for the bodice and the second for the skirt.

These are the two fabrics I had to work with:

The first thing I did was draft a pattern. I found a dress of Abby's that I like and traced the bodice onto tracing paper (adding some extra room around the entire thing, since I want her to be able to grow into it).

Dress for patterning

After I traced it out, I cut pieces out of cheap fabric to make sure that it fit in a reasonable manner.

Then I traced and cut the bodice from the white Superman fabric.

The paper pattern is 1/2 of one side, so I cut one on a fold (for the front) and two pieces to make the back.

Since I want this to last long enough for Miss A to grow into it, I chose to do French seams. Essentially, French seams mean sewing your project together the wrong way, then turning it inside out and sewing it the right way. This creates enclosed seams, that are far sturdier than just a basic seam.

Sew fabric together with the wrong sides together.

Flip garment inside-out.

Iron flat.

Fold seams and iron flat again.

Sew together with right sides facing.

You should not see any of the raw edges once you sew it the second time. Also, have some iced coffee, you deserve it.

Iron flat (again).

Fold seams and iron flat (again).

Whew, okay. Bodice is sewn together. At this point, decide what sort of closure you would like in the back. You can do a zipper (which is what I did), buttons, or snaps. No matter what you do, you'll need to fold over some amount of fabric in the back. Iron it down on both sides.

Now it's time for the skirt. I knew I wanted the skirt to be pleated, but wasn't sure what sort of pleating or how much bigger the skirt should be than the bodice. The length of my fabric ended up determining how much bigger it was.

Looking at the fabrics together.

The red fabric is about 1.5 times the length of the bodice.

I measured the width of the fabric to see if maybe I could cut it in half to make it longer for pleating, but a 9" skirt wouldn't be long enough for her to grow into.

For the pleats, I pinned the skirt to the bodice at even intervals (again sewing wrong sides together so I could do French seams), starting with center front, right seam, center back, and left seam. Then I pinned in between the intervals until the pleats looked about the size I wanted.

Sides pinned together, this is the amount of fabric that needs pleating.

Finding the center of a section

Pinned in place.

Time for more ironing. I ironed the pleats flat, then pinned them down for sewing. In the center front and center back, I reversed the direction of one pleat to create an open pleat rather than just all going in one direction. I didn't really need to do that, since the pleats were small enough that they aren't super apparent after sewing.

Sew the skirt to the bodice, making sure the pleats stay flat.

Pull the bodice out of the skirt and admire your work.

Okay, now it's time to fold the right sides together, iron them, and sew.

Lay it flat and admire your work again (admiring your work is important).

Closure time. I did a zipper, so I lined it up, pinned it in place, and sewed it on.

To finish the arms and neck, you can either hem them as is or put bias tape on them. I bought this amazing bias tape maker, where you insert the fabric in one end, and it creases as it comes out the other side. You iron it as you pull it out, and then fold it in half and iron again.

Pin the bias tape onto the neckline and armholes, enclosing the raw edges of the bodice in the bias tape, and sew down.

Now it's time to hem the thing! I folded the bottom edge up and tacked it in four places to the waistline. This way I can easily let it out as Miss A. gets taller.