Strawberry Sundress and Bloomers Sewing Pattern

Instructions

1.  If you have a serger, lettuce edge the hem of the dress.  If you do not know how to do this, look at your instruction booklet for your serger and determine the settings for a rolled hem.  After setting your serger to the rolled hem, insert the bottom hem of your dress and begin.  As you serge, stretch the fabric and you will begin to see it become wavy as it goes through. 

If you do not have a serger, just make a small plain hem.  

2. Hem the top of the dress.

3. Fill a bobbin with shirring elastic.  You will shirr the top of the dress while sewing the right side of the fabric as shown in the picture. 

Line your presser foot edge with the hem stitch line and begin shirring. Stretch the fabric some as you shirr, so that as you finish, it begins to gather.  As you start shirring a new row, line your presser foot up with the previous shirred row.  Continue shirring for several rows.  Make sure to leave excess thread at each row. Then as you create more shirred rows, pull slightly on the excess threads to gather the shirring more.

4. Once you have sewn all rows, put the right sides together of the dress. This will create a seam at one of the sides of the dress.  Make sure you match up the shirring rows.  As I sew the seam, I usually do some back-stitching to tack the shirring so it doesn’t come loose.  Then cut the threads of the shirring close to the tacking. 

5.  To make the straps, take your two pieces of rib knit.  Unlike the dress, they should be the most stretchy LENGTHWISE.  You will fold them into thirds like the photo.

Then you will fold them in half once more to hide the raw edge.

Sew each strap closed as pictured.

6.  Try the dress on your daughter and mark the placement of the ribbed straps.  There will be some excess to each strap edge, which you can cut off after sewing them on.

If you can’t try it on a child, sew the straps and leave an excess of about 1/2 inch to 1 inch at each raw edge.

When I sew the straps, I like to sew them on the hemline of the top of the dress and I tack them so they are secure.  Usually, they will fit nicely about 2 to 2.5 inches from the center of the dress on either side.  If they are attached too far to the side, they tend to fall off the shoulders.

7.  You will need to tape the bloomers together at the points indicated. It will be just one pattern piece.

8. If you have a serger, use the rolled hem to lettuce edge the legs of the bloomers. If you don’t have a serger, just sew a small hem on the legs.

9.  Attach the 1/8 inch elastic about 1/2 inch from the edge of the legs. Make sure you leave a little above the side seam where you start attaching it, so you will catch some elastic in the side seam.

Remember to stretch the elastic as you sew, so that it will not be loose on your baby’s legs.  Don’t stretch it extremely tight so that it doesn’t cause red marks on their legs, but also don’t NOT stretch it, otherwise it will be loose.  

10.  Put right sides together of the bloomers, matching the side seams.  Start at the leg and sew the side seam all the way to the waist.  

Once you sew both side seams up, it should look like this.

11.  To finish up your bloomers, we just have the waistband.  Sew a casing for the elastic waistband, but make sure to leave 1-2 inches unsewn to insert your elastic.

Measure your child’s waist and subtract 1-1/2 inches and cut the elastic.  If you need a chart, use the one in the cutting guide.  

12.  Insert the elastic into the casing using a safety pin.  Make sure to leave one end of the elastic out.  Then, pull through, overlap the elastic and sew it together.  Then sew the casing closed.