Saturday, June 23, 2012

Multiwear Dress

For my sister's wedding, she made all of her bridesmaids champagne multiwear dresses as their dress. With summer here, and them being so easy to make, i popped out a few. I made a pink, a red, and a green.




Basically, you cut a hole in the middle of a square or circle of knit fabric and sew two 8-10" wide "straps" (~45-60" long rectangular panels) to it, adding a facing (a 2" wide rectangular tube the size of your waist) if you don't want the raw edge to show in the back. A small 1"-2" overlap of the panels in the center (where your boobs will be) is convenient.





Tips & Tricks

-This dress works better with lightweight super stretchy knits that have lots of give.

-Fabric comes folded in half lengthwise on the bolt. To find a square, fold it in half crosswise and then fold it at a diagonal. If the raw edges all line up with each other, it's a square. To make it a circle, measure the straight folded side (it usually comes out to be ~24") and mark the circle at intervals of 24" from the point with pins and cut. Leave it folded and cut the waist hole. For my 26" waist, the radius of the waist hole is ~2.5". Knits stretch so it doesn't have to be horribly accurate.

-Knits stretch. To keep the waist snugly fit, i stitched a piece of elastic to the length of the facing.

2 comments:

  1. Which fabric type did you use? I think mine was called wool stretch knit, but it wasn't 100% what I was going for. I also didnt find a fabric big enough for a long skirt.

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  2. one of the super stretchy joanns ones. the $12/yd ones (they're 50% off though). I think I figured out you need about 2 and half yards per dress. We bought fabric for the wedding, but it's in pieces (ends of bolts) so i don't know if i have enough or not. Carrie picked champagne like yours and then we made green organza flower belts to accent and figure everyone will tie those differently too.

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