All Things New: The 12 Days of Ellee The Second of Ellee The Chevron Dress

The 12 Days of Ellee

On the Second Day of Christmas

my mother made for me

Two ruffled sleeves and a fitted Chevron Dress

Ellee's favorite color is blue, so when she found this blue and turquoise chevron dress and the tag made the price 49cents, Ellee was ecstatic! Obviously, we had a lot of work to do on this one! First, it was big enough to fit two of her in. Secondly, there were no straps. Although that may be fine for some, we are a modest bunch and especially 13 year olds don't go strapless. So, straps (maybe even sleeves) were our goal.

The first step (I got excited again and forgot to take a picture) was to turn the dress inside out and pin it evenly on either side to fit comfortably around Ellee's torso and hips. I had a lot of fabric on each side, as I had to take it in about 3-4 inches on either side. Thankfully, because of that, we had our fabric to make straps!

Cut then sewing the side seams. I was able to cut off several inches to make the straps.

My very uneven tapering seam as I sewed past the hips. Luckily, it won't change the dress look.

I straight stitched each side, tapering off as I got past the hip section. I also have a serger, so I sewed up the seams with black thread, making the edges nice and tidy. This is not a necessity, though. With knit fabric, it will not unravel in most cases. Now I got busy on the straps.

I used the excess fabric from the sides to sew straps. I wanted my straps to be fairly wide, so I used the widest parts of the scrap and cut them the same width/length to match. I used an 3/8th or less seam because I wanted to get the most out of the fabric piece. I sewed the edges together to form a tube. I then flipped the tube inside out. I did that for both straps.

Finished strap. The underside came out a different color .

I still felt the straps were not enough and there was just enough fabric left to make a small ruffle on each side. I cut the scraps, once again, to be the same width/length, then ran a gathering stitch through the top of the ruffle. I gathered the ruffle to fit the tops of Ellee's shoulders, putting it in place with pins. Once I had it positioned where I wanted it, I sewed with a regular stitch on the underside of the ruffle and the very edge of the strap. When it was done, I was able to flip it to the part that would be showing and it appeared there was no seam. The ruffle was a bit uneven, but you weren't able to tell when gathered.

This particular piece of fabric included the stretchy bodice that was cut off. I included that in the strap "tube", as I liked the texture that it created. Not to mention, I would not have had enough scrap if I had cut it off. Both sides had the same about of stretch fabric, so that it where I attached the strap to the bodice of the dress. With one side sewn on, I had Ellee try the dress on again to position the straps to create a comfortable fit, then sewed the back strap in the same fashion. The ending product looked like this: