Tutorial: Bandana Dress/Shirt

The Bandana Dress!

A simple dress for up to age 3, and then it doubles as a shirt!

Supplies:

1. Spool of ribbon (ideally 7/8" wide)

2. 2 matching bandanas

 How to make this:

1. Fold bandana and pin at 1 3/8" (to allow a seam) and sew. If you'd like to put ribbon along the bottom of your dress, do that now. 

2.Place bandanas right side together and pin 6" down from the top.  

 3. Sew the bandana from the bottom of the dress to where you inserted the pin. This picture shows the opposite but I learned on my second dress to do it this way because then the bottom matches up. Sew on the other side as well.

4. Iron down the seams.

5. Turn right side out.

6. Thread your ribbon through the sewn down folded fabric. I used 39" of ribbon for each bandana. Singe the edges of your ribbon if needed to prevent fraying.

7. Push together the fabric with the ribbon inside until it is about 7" long. This is the neckline. Make sure the ribbon showing is the same length on each side of the neckline and sew down the ribbon. This allows the neckline to stay bunched together, the ribbon to not come out of the dress when it is washed, and for the ribbon to stay the same length on each side. Sew down the ribbon on all four points where the ribbon comes out of the fold. 

Here's my model! She wanted the camera so I couldn't quite get a smile out of her.   

If you'd like to make a flower for your dress/shirt, you can use this flower option, or take the ribbon and sew straight down the middle with the largest stitch your machine can do and follow the same instructions.