Tuesday 1 February 2011

Turning a simple dress into a Playsuit/RomperSuit

I love play suits, however I just don't look good in them. I recently got my lovely boyfriend to buy  a bundle of dresses off Ebay, and this one came in the bundle, I'm not much of a floral person, but I love play suits and thought it would make quite a cute play suit just for messing about in the garden and such in, so here is a tutorial. Please try on the dress first to see how it fits, I skipped this part and it doesn't fit unless I loose some more weight, so for now it's tucked in the back of my closet.


How to:



1)   1)   Find a simple dress and press (iron) it so that there are no creases, don’t worry if like me you’re useless with an iron, this step isn’t necessary but it just helps when drawing since creases are hard to draw over.

2)   2)   Now find a pair of shorts or jeans, ideally boot cut, since I’m not sure how it would work with skinny jeans etc, but boot cut are just a lot more rectangular and less fiddly I should imagine.

3)     3) Fold the dress and the jeans/shorts in half. Make sure to fold the dress wrong sides together so that your pattern is inside, not facing up at you.

4)     4) Place the halves on  top of each other as so. I would advise if the dress is like the one I am using that you make the crutch about an inch or so lower, since mine turned out to have REALLY long legs.







5)      5) I advise before just cutting, that you pin and then try on, I didn’t do this, and forgot the size of my bum… it doesn’t fit properly, therefore trying it on before does help, that way you can adjust the pins and such and make sure you can pull it up properly….. however if this is on a dress that you will never like and is simple a run through to see how to do it so that you can then do it on a dress you do like… then I suppose you can skip the whole adjusting thing just so that you get the idea.

6)   6)   Now you can try to simply just cut round the jeans or if you’re a bit like me, you can draw then cut, anything will work really.

7)      7) Then simply unfold and pin them and then sew and they should look brilliant (: I used a ½ hem allowance since I could tell before I started that they were going to be small in the leg, however I would advise 5/8 instead. I just used a straight stitch. Do try your machine on a sample piece (the bit you chopped out for the crutch will do) and just make sure your machine is set up okay.
If you have any questions feel free to just leave it in a comment and I'll check the posts regularly, hope your play suits come out a bit better than mine did,but the main instructions are here!
zxoxo

8)       

5 comments:

  1. this is really good thanks xxx

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  2. this is great but i would cut the back part of the crutch piece longer than the front as it makes room for the bottom.

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  3. love this tip thankyou

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  4. This is really good thank you! It would be great if you posted a picture of the finished product!! And good luck on becoming a designer!

    bel-bien.blogspot.ie

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  5. Next time use both the front and back curves. The back haas a deeper and longer curve to fit the roundness of the buttocks

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