It's Sew Simple
Creating a dress, gloves and ruffle
By Dolla
The tube dress
is the simplest dress one can make. In previous issues I showed how
to create the dress and how easily you can add pieces to it for different
looks. In this issue a shorter tube dress is used and gauntlets and
ruffles are added. These same techniques can be used on the longer
dress for a lovely eveningwear look. Play with creating various
lengths with your own tube dress and ruffles.
Remember although these fashions can be sewn by machine or by hand we will
be using a sewing machine.
| Supplies | |
| tube dress sewing machine/supplies matching thread straight pins scissors or rotary cutter |
ruler or ruled cutting mat measuring tape fabric remnant doll |
Gauntlets. Gauntlets are handless gloves. A small narrow tube. They are created exactly like the tube dress in smaller scale. Measure the doll's arm from shoulder to wrist. Add 1/2" to allow for hem. Cut two pieces at the measured length and 1" wide.
Turn under 1/4" hem on both the top and bottom and sew. Place the fabric around the doll's arm on the wrong side of the fabric and pin. Remove it from the arm and trim the access fabric close to the pins. Sew.
Turn to the gauntlet to the right side. It's easier to turn with surgical hemostats or by placing a safety pin at the end and pushing/pulling it through. To make sleeves out of the gauntlets, hand sew them to the dress under the arm with a few small tacking stitches.
Ruffles. Ruffles add a pretty look to our basic tube dress. Adding ruffles to the top and bottom changes the whole aspect of the dress. Use a tape measure or a piece of string and measure the width of the shoulder of your doll. Likewise, measure the bottom width of the dress.
Cut two pieces of fabric twice the measured widths. Turn under the long edges of both fabrics and hem. Gathering stitches are just as easy to sew by hand as machine. Hand sew a gathering stitch near the top edge of each piece. Check each piece against the shoulder and hem measurement for fit and knot the thread to anchor. If gathering by machine, loosen your stitch length and sew a straight line. Pull on the bottom (bobbin) thread so it gathers to fit around the shoulder or the bottom of the dress. To make a knot in a machine sewn gather, pull gently on the bottom (bobbin) thread until you see the loop from the top thread. Pull the top thread through to the underside using a straight pin. Hand tie a double square knot with the two threads and cut the threads close to the knot.
Top ruffle. You can attach the ruffle to the front center of the dress with a bar tack (a few stitches in one place) if desired. We did not attach ours. Instead ours will be removeable by adding a snap or ribbon to the back for closure.
Bottom ruffle. After you measure the ruffle for fit and anchor the gather stitch, sew the center back seam of the ruffle. Sew the ruffle under or on top of the dress hem. We chose to sew ours by hand under the hem using hidden slip stitches. This ruffle could have been attached to the dress and sewed by machine before sewing the center back seam of the dress. Sewing it afterwards as we have done here gives the fashion a cleaner look.
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