I wish I could wear this dress. It’s simple but cute. Light but also warm & fuzzy. And just oh so springtime that even the foot of snow outside can’t deny it. But it’s not for me, it’s a size 18 mth & would be a tad snug. (and on the verge of obscene) It’s a perfect fit however for Samster & still makes me happy because I made the entire dress from one men’s XXL sweatshirt that was on clearance at Target for $4. Woohoo!

Modeling is hard work…

The tulips are done from a freezer paper stencil I made that I’ll give you below. Then I added some small x’s around the waistline with embroidery floss to give it a little something extra.To start off I took apart the sweatshirt by following the seams with my rotary cutter. (save the ribbing! You’ll use it for the neckline later) Next I laid one of Sam’s dresses over a sleeve to cut out my top front & bottom pieces. They’re basically the same, the front one just scoops down a bit more.For the bottom pattern pieces I cut out 2 large rectangles that were the same width as the widest part of her current dress by the length of the bottom part of her current dress. For me this was 13″ x 17″. Next I went ahead and painted the two bottom rectangles. To use my tulip stencil just save the images below & print them each “fit to page”. (full page size)I put the stencils underneath a large piece of freezer paper & traced them all different ways to make it look more natural. I switched the leaves around too…Once traced came the grueling task of cutting it all out with an exacto knife….ugggghhh.

Then iron it on your fabric & paint away! I used tulip brand fabric paint & made the light blue color by mixing a few drops of turquoise & azure blue with a bunch of white. It took 2 coats to get the blue to stand out on the red. **Don’t glob it on though, it’ll bleed beneath your paper!Once the paint was dry & I had heat set the images with another pass of the iron, putting the pieces together went something like this…first I stitched the shoulder seams of the front & back top pieces together. Then I pinned the front top & front bottom together with 3 pleats in the middle, stitched, & repeated for back two pieces.

*Note: I’m a self taught sewer so some of my methods might seem a bit quirky or unconventional but they work for me (;Next I turned it inside out & trimmed off the side of the rectangle bottoms & angled them.I attached ribbing around the neckline & hemmed the armholes. I finished edges first with the serger & then topstitched them down with my regular machine. I stitched a seam from the armhole down, hemmed the bottom, threw some embroidery around the waistband and called it a day! I know I kind of flew threw the stitching directions…the post was getting a wee bit long. If you need me to clarify anything just leave a comment. (:

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