KT Made It: Pillowcase Dress

Now that baby girl is finally sleeping better and things are in a more "normal" routine, I am trying to make a little time for myself including working out, a little cooking/baking and a few crafts now and then. I don't anticipate that I will be blogging as much as I was in the B.C. (Before Children) era, but a few posts here and there is plenty these days!
A few weeks ago I made a pillow case dress for my little one. These are easy dresses to make for the novice sewer and for those of us with little time to cut out a complicated pattern.
There are a lot of instructions out there to make a pillowcase dress. Here are some of the ones that I found helpful:
Dress A Girl Around The World's "Best Dress Ever" Tutorial
Bumblebee Linen's Pillowcase Dress
Here a graphic that is also helpful.

I knew that I had only minutes to do each step while baby girl occupied herself here and there. She ate quite a few cheerios which I used to keep her busy while I made her dress. I used fat quarters instead of a pillowcase- two of one pattern for the dress bodice and one for the bottom panel. I bought one package of 1/2 inch ribbon for the drawstrings.

I made a pattern for the top of the dress, you can see the arm hole. I folded one polka dot fat quarter in half lengthwise and put the pattern piece along the fold. I cut the out the piece and added length to the bottom. I did the same with the second piece. This was the front and back of the dress.

I used the blue fat quarter to make a bottom panel of the dress.

Here are the four pieces of the dress. I spent quite a bit of time ironing out the folds...

Next, I sewed the sides together with the right-side facing in so that when the pieces were turned outward the right side of the fabric was facing outward and the seams were inside. I used a 1/2 inch seam allowance.

I do not have a surging machine or sewing machine foot, so I used pinking shears to trim the seams before pressing them with the iron. Then I sewed the seams in place.

To attach the bottom panel I turned the top of the dress right-side out and with the bottom panel seams facing outward line up the bottom hem of the dress and the top of the bottom panel. I sewed these together with a 1/2inch seam allowance.

After that I pulled to bottom panel so that the right side of the dress was facing out and then pressed the seams.

Next, I turned the dress inside out and then I folded the bottom panel in half with the "wrong side" facing together.

I made sure that there was about 1 inch of fabric above the seam that connected the two pieces of the dress. I folded the 1piec" hem inside creating a finished seam, which I then sewed in place.

With the dress sewn together, I then made a hem for the arm holes.

And, finally, the top casing for the ribbon. I did this by folding the top edge about 1inch and then sewing across.

I fed the ribbon through the casing of the front and back of the dress, tying the ribbon on one side of the dress.

Looking forward to more sewing projects!