I searched long and hard online to find a tutorial to make a cute baby blessing dress. I wasn't successful in finding anything that was a long puffy and had a bonnet. So I thought I will make my own! This was my first attempt at making a dress for a baby and made sure to draw out my ideas many times.
I am in love and can't wait to hopefully have another girl and make another one. The photo below shows it off wonderfully thanks to Claire Brown Photography.
Supplies Needed:
- 1 yard of lace (I bought a stretchy silky lace so it laid and flowed nicely)
- 1 yard of a soft stiffer fabric (I chose a material similar to what prom dresses are made out of however it had a little bit of a give or stretch so it wasn't really constricting)
- White thread for a serger and for a sewing machine
- A serger and a sewing machine
- Iron, ironing board and starch
- Pins
- Two buttons
- 0-3 month white sweater (I bought mine from Target for about $13 online)
Step 1: Picking out your material. I went to the discounted craft store called SAS and bought 1 yard of a stretchy prom dress material and 1 yard of stretchy lace that flowed. This only cost me about $6. Then I went to Michaels and purchased two buttons to sew on for about $4. I didn't want to tackle sleeves so I made thick straps and bought a sweater from Target. The sweater cost more than the dress it was about $13.
Step 2: I took a 0-3 month baby dress and used it as a template. I laid out my prom dress fabric and traced the dress on it and then cut it out. I will be honest this took me three attempts till it came out the way I wanted it.
Once your material is cut and you have both a front and back of the dress you will cut out the lace. You will use your two patterns you just cut from the prom material. Pin the prom material over the lace. Then trace it and cut out the pattern you just traced. So you will end up with two prom dress material patterns and two identical patterns in the lace material. This constitutes two front and two back pieces. Then start cutting the rest of the lace material up. You want about 2 1/2-3 inch strips of lace as long as they will go and as many as you can cut. To make sure you have enough strips of lace you will want to lay them out over your dress and overlap them about 3/4 of an inch to make sure you have enough. Since your lace will eventually be ruffled you will want to double if not triple the length to make it around the whole dress once it is ruffled and serged.
Step 3: You will need a sewing machine and a serger (the serger makes for quick and easy use when creating the finishing edges for the lace and dress.) I am sure you can do that with a sewing machine however I didn't want to attempt.
I pined the lace right side facing out on top of the prom dress material and used the serger to sew the two front pieces together and the two back pieces together. So now you have one front and one back piece connected. Then I pinned the front and back pieces together. The right sides facing each other. (This is just like when you sew a pillow case and then you turn it right side out when you are finished.) You will sew just the two sides together and leave the four thick straps open.
Get your lace strips and you will sew one side of every lace strip. The serged edge will end up being the flowing finished edge once each of your strips are sewn on.
Step 4: Then go to your sewing machine and gather on of your bottoms you are using to enclose the top four thick straps. (Not connecting the thick straps allow for easy access when dressing and undressing your baby. I am so glad I did this instead of complicating this with buttons or a zipper on the front or back to irritate the baby. The bottoms are out of the way on top of the baby's shoulder. ) Get your button foot and attach it to your sewing machine. Then make sure you have the white thread for both your bobbin and in your top stitch. Use a scrap piece of prom dress and less material to get the full effect. Place your button in the button foot and make sure it is a success. Once you have that down take your dress and on the front two thick straps you will mark where you want the button holes to go with a pencil. Then go to town and sew those button holes on the straps. I did mine leaving a few centimeters from the top and sides. Then I sewed the buttons on the two back thick straps.
Step 5: Next is sewing on your lace. First you need to ruffle it up a little bit. (If you don't know how to ruffle just watch a youtube video.) Then take your ruffled lace pieces and I just eyeballed how much I would need to make it around the whole dress. If some of my pieces where to short I sewed some together so you only have one long strip for each layer. I also eyeballed how many layers I wanted. This will be dependent upon how many layers you want and how long your dress is. I started slightly under the arm pit of the dress about 1/2-1 inch or so and laid out my layers to overlap about 1/4 inch.
Once you figure that out then you will pin your first layer starting from the top of the dress right below the arm pit. I then stitched the first layer on once I made sure the pinning job was straight and to my liking. (I always triple check myself so I don't have to pick it all apart.) Then I lifted up the layer after it was sewn and pin my next layer slightly under the first so they overlap. Then your off and keep repeating this until your last layer is complete. As you can see in the picture below I had layers go until the very bottom of the dress so the lace was longer than the actual dress I was sewing on.
Step 6: Next I wanted that nice finished look on top of the first layer of lace. I took the prom dress material and cut out a 2 inch wide strip of fabric to wrap around the lace. (I always add length since you can trim it if necessary.) Then I got out my ironing board and pressed the fabric. I folded it in so there are no unfinished edges and pressed it again. This should result in the size band you want wrapped around. My band was about 1/2-3/4 inch thick. Then you will pin the pressed folded fabric over the very top of the first layer of lace. Eyeball it until it is to your liking. Then you will take a single stitch and sew all the way around close to the edge. Then you will do it again on the opposite side till it looks like the picture below.
The back of the dress has the seam that I folded and sewed like the picture you see below.
Step 7: If you where like me and bought a sweater I then took extra lace and trimmed it down. Then I eyeballed the length of the lace to the sweater and cut it. Then I took my sewing machine and sewed on the edge of the sweater so it didn't cover the open wholes where the buttons go. I tapered the edges in a little at the top and bottom for a more finished look.
My sweet little girl was blessed this January 2014 and she wore white tights with crochet booties my wonderful friend Abby made for her. I also had a pink headband with a white flower on her head!
If you complete your own dresses please comment and let me know how it went and post pictures! Good luck!
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