Dress to Impress

My brother is getting married in a few months!! Me being the genius I am, I volunteered to help out with a lot of the wedding stuff since I used to work in the wedding industry and I'm so crafty. Plus they want the whole shebang to be fairly budget-friendly. One of the things I got roped into doing (because I can't say no to people) was making the flower girl dress. What was I thinking? They decided on having a rustic country wedding so I thought a pillowcase dress would be precious. Welllll...I've never made a pillowcase dress before so I figured it would be a good idea to make a prototype. I started out looking for what do to from Pinterest, but ended up making my own. Here's my version...

I'm going to go ahead and warn you that it was my first time making this dress so I made a few mistakes. But hey, we learn from our mistakes right? 

Disclaimer: This isn't really a tutorial so much as a "what I did to make this" kinda thing...

My fabric and ribbon (from the sale bin)

The adorable flower girl (the bride's niece) is 5, so I measured the fabric to be 23" in length, plus 2" to allow for seams. The width is about 36" 

If you fold the fabric in half to be 25" x 18" you can see about what size the finished product will be.

Fold under the bottom to make a seam and sew along the edge.

At the top of the dress, you will need to fold down a larger seam allowance (big enough for your ribbon to run through the entire length) 

Showing the ribbon allowance

Next I folded the fabric in half and made it inside out to sew it. Make sure to start directly BELOW the folded ribbon part from the top! If you sew it up, the ribbon won't have a hole to go through.

I went back to where the ribbon hole is going to be and put about 4 stitches in the top so the hole would be finished off. 

This is what the dress looked like at this point...not much to see, but it'll take shape in just a minute.

I almost forgot the arm holes!! That would have been hard to get into without them. 

I cut a triangle-shaped hole into each side. It was about 2" across by 5" down.

I turned the dress inside out again and carefully folded down the seam to sew the arm holes.

I forgot to take a pic of me putting the ribbon through the holes (I'm only human). But it's really simple to do. Just measure out about how long you need the ribbon for each side. Take your two pieces of ribbon and lead them through the holes. Kinda scrunch it together to form a neck hole. Then tie bows and PRESTO you have a fabulous pillowcase dress!! 

I can't wait to make the munchkin try it on! I'll post pics when I can manage to wrangle her into it.