Bandana Dress Tutorial

A couple of months ago, I made this dress using a bandana John's aunt gave to Lillie and I.

I had a lot of people request a tutorial on how I made it.  To be honest, I wasn't too excited to make another one because I only really need one cowgirl dress for Lillie.  Then it happened.  I was at walmart one day and found these beauties.

I knew they needed to be mine and that I would indeed be able to post a tutorial.  I LOVE Halloween!

This is how I made the dress:

1. Buy 2 bandanas
2.  Cut the bandana using the middle of the material for the body of the dress.  (It makes the dress look better if the main pattern is all showing and not cut off.)  The sides will be used as ruffles so make sure they are the same size.  I left a 15" piece in the middle to fit Lillie. Cut big piece in half.

3. Put wrong sides together and then fold in half so all four edges are touching.  Cut arm holes.

4. Using the sides, make a ruffle using a running stitch along one edge.

5. (optional)  Using Tulle, make another ruffle.

6.  Pin ruffle on bottom of dress with right sides together

7. Zig Zag edge

8. Turn right sides out.  It should look like this.

9. Use elastic or elastic thread to add a smocked look.  To simplify, just sew two pieces of elastic to dress like I did in the first dress.

10. Use 2nd bandana to create the straps.

11. Sew right sides together

12.Turn right side out sew down both sides

13.  Cut 6" per strap

14. Zig Zag around top of dress

15. Fold over and sew along edge

16.  Attach straps to top

17. Sew a box to secure straps

18.  Dress is done!  You can stop here and have a great dress, or you can add some embelishments to make it even cuter.

I love the way it turned out.  I think Lillie likes it too!  (sorry about the blurry pictures.  I couldn't get her to stop running around)

Please let me know if you have any questions about this or if anything was unclear in the tutorial.