Homestead Skills: How to Create Your Own Summer Sundress

Making my own clothing is something I've wanted to do for a long time, but it seemed really, really intimidating.  I took Home Economics classes in middle school, but really my skills were pretty limited.  Luckily, D's aunt is a seamstress and took me under her wing.  She let me borrow her sewing machine, taught me some of the basics on how to use it, and I was off!

The first thing I made was a patchwork quilt.  I'm pretty proud of it- it took me a long time and it really did help me grow in my sewing skills.  I used D's grandma's already cut sewing scraps, a blanket I had for the stuffing, and an old bed sheet for the back.  It's definitely not perfect, but it did get me started and more interested in sewing.  Plus, the story of it being D's grandma's fabric makes it even more special.

Ms. K all snuggled up in my quilt.

Since then, I've made a few more quilts as gifts and dabbled with creating some dresses for B using her current dresses as a guide.  The dresses have been ok...but nothing has been as great as this one!

This style dress is so cute, and it can work on any girl or woman.  I am soon to be making a dress for myself using this very same style very soon!  That way all of us girls can have matching dresses!  Fabric is really relatively cheap, and you can make quite a few little girl dresses out of a few yards of fabric.  For all of us, I purchased three yards of fabric and had enough for dresses for myself, my three-year-old, and my almost four-month-old (plus some more which I may make into something else!).

This dress is sewn using a shirring method.  I learned how to do it in two places- Farmhouse on Boone and from the Everyday Farmhouse.  If you haven't checked out these ladies before, you should.  I really learn a lot from both of them and feel like they're my friends- even though they don't know me at all!  Both of these ladies also have video tutorials on the pages linked above, so check those out if you're going to try these dresses out!

Anyone could make this.  All you have to do is sew in a straight line and cut in a straight line.  Or not.  It's a forgivable dress, and I am fully confident it will turn out for you!

The only adaptation I made was to only do the shirring on half of the dress (the front).  For me, the shirring bunched up too much and was too small when I was done to fit the girls (even though I had added extra fabric).  It could have just been my thread too.  Regardless, the end result was just as beautiful!

​What are your favorite things to sew?

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