When I saw this Riley Blake fabric at The Ribbon Retreat I absolutely fell in love and knew I needed to make something out of it. I stared at it for a couple of seconds and then it hit me-baby girl dress with lots of layers and ruffles. Because, you know, with 4 little boys I have tons of need for baby girl dresses.
This dress is similar to the 4th of July dress and Candy Corn dresses that I have done, but adds in a few more layers and slightly different straps. I love, love, love how it turned out! I think it’s my favorite baby dress yet.
I know you want to make one of your own!
And…there’s matching shoes! Click here for that pattern
What You Need:
3 coordinating fabrics (amount will depend on size of dress you are making-if you are making a baby/toddler size you can probably get away with about 1/2 yard of each. If you are going bigger than that, get more like 1 yard of each.)
Small amount of lining fabric (in coordinating color)
2 Buttons
Baby Dress Pattern Pieces: Infant (about 3-6 months size) or Toddler (about 12 month size)
Tiered Ruffled Baby Girls Dress Tutorial:
First of all, print off the pattern pieces (above). If you need a different size I recommend finding a dress that fits your child currently and use it as a template to create this dress. Simply create a pattern just like the ones I have given you, but size it up to fit your child. I will be adding pattern sizes down the road.
With those pattern pieces, fold your main fabric in half, place the pattern piece on the fold and cut. You will have one piece of the front and one of the back. You then need to do the same with the lining fabric so that you end up with 4 total pieces of cut fabric to create the top of your dress.
Now, grab the front piece of your dress and the front piece of the lining. Put right sides together and sew all the way around except across the bottom. Do the same with the back pieces. Turn right side out and iron them nice and flat.
With those 2 pieces that you just created, again, put right sides together and sew together on the sides. Turn the whole thing right side out.
The only other thing you need to do to complete your top is to sew your buttons in. Hand stitch the button in place on each strap and create a button hold on the dress bodice for the button to go through. And you’re done with the top! By the way, turns out I need some serious practice at sewing button holes.
To make the body you need to cut 3 long strips of fabric-one of each of your 3 fabrics.
You need to know how long you want your dress to be and then make your strips accordingly.
For the toddler size dress my strips are about 4 inches wide. For the infant do more like 3 inches wide.
To determine the length, first measure your bodice width. (The toddler one is 10.5.”) Then use the following chart to figure out length:
Chart for the layered ruffles:
***When I say width here, please measure your bodice piece width and then double it. So that the width I am referring to is the width of the front and the back piece together.
Layer 1: 1.5 x the width of your bodice
Layer 2: 2 x the width of your bodice
Layer 3: 3 x the width of your bodice
Take your first strip, fold it in half and sew the ends together:
Then run a basting stitch along the top end, leaving the thread hanging nice and long at the end. (Do not knot the thread at the start or the finish.)
Gently pull one of the threads to create a gather in your fabric.
Pull and gather until it is the width of your bodice.
Insert the bodice of the dress into the gathered ruffle that you just created so that right sides are touching. Stitch all the way around the dress to sew the ruffle to the bodice top.
Now do the same with layers two and three, stitching them into place on the layer above them.
On the bottom layer sew a hem:
Turn everything right side out:
And gawk at its cuteness for a minute or two. Don’t you love it?
I made one of these in a sewing class not too long ago! So cute!! I would love to win one of these for my baby girl! :)
i would love to win! it’s so cute!
I want it!!!! Can you make an adult version for me to wear? :)
Thanks so much for sharing this at The DIY Dreamer.. From Dream To Reality!
I would love to win this dress for my Niece. The colors and pattern are great! If I had a sewing machine life would be so much easier ;-)
I love this dress! My little girl will turn 1 this weekend and would look so cute in the dress!
I made a pattern like this for my daughter when she was 5 years old and sewed several of these dresses, one was gingham and the other from sewing scraps. Glad to see a pattern for a baby, I have a new niece and 2 more on the way.
Love this tutorial and the dress is gorgeous!
Hi Amber, what very adorable little dress! My only grandchild is a little baby boy, or I would for sure be entering the giveaway.
Have a good day, Nancy
such a cute tute! I am bookmarking it.
I love it! Very cute.
It’s a gorgeous dress
Lovely patterns and beautiful colors
Super cute!! Thanks so much for linking up to Do Something Crafty Friday!
So cute! I just love the lavendar fabrics! Thanks for linking up to the Pomp Party! Hope to see you back next week!
Really adorable!
I am coming over from a linky party and I would love for you to come over and check out my Wool Dryer Ball Tutorial!!
Have a Good Day!
Ashley Suzanne
Hi, I just tried to print your sewing instructions from crazylittleprojects.com and it would not print. It prints everythng to the right of the instructions. I love the litlle ruffled tierd dress and was able to print the bodice back and front but not the actual instructions. I highlighted them and hit print but it printed like 18 pages of stuff.
Can you help?
Thanks. Love this project!
Try copying and pasting the text into a word document maybe?
Hi there – I am currently trying to make this dress – it’s super cute! However, I’m having some issues with the instructions for the layers. Maybe I’m not reading it correctly.
But, you say the length of the first layer should be 1.5x the width of the dress. We are then instructed to fold it in half – when you do this it is then too small (even before ruffle-ing) because it wasn’t even twice the width, which I would think would need to me the minimum to create a skirt piece that fits the bodice, and that leaves no room for ruffle-ing. Like I said, perhaps I’ve read it wrong. If so, please help! :) Thanks so much. I really want to make this for my little girl. Erin
Oh I can see how that would be VERY confusing. I need to fix the wording on that. I mean 1.5 times the width of the dress if you were to measure it all the way around in a circle. So really, the width times 2 and then 1.5 times it. Does that make sense?
Yes! That makes much more sense. Thanks so much! On to finish the dress….
Thanks for the tutorial….turned out great….made shoes and a headband to match!
Ah! Love to hear that!
I would like to make this, but not sure how to do it to fit my almost 20 month old granddaughter! Any chance of you making a pattern for this size or could you tell me in details how to do it, if it’s not too much trouble? Thank you so much!
The easiest thing to do would be to use one of her dresses that she owns as a guide if possible. Try to adjust the top part of the pattern to match the top of one of her dresses and then work from there.
Do you have a pajama tutorial?
Yes I do: http://crazylittleprojects.com/2013/01/pajamas-tutorial.html