Girl's Ruffle Dress / Tunic Tutorial

I wanted to make a fun dress for my friend's daughter, Eleanor, who was turning five last week. Since I enjoyed making the Ruffle T-shirts so much, I decided to try my hand at incorporating what I learned with that project and making a dress.


I went to Target and I bout a girl's long sleeved white tee. I also purchased two purple short sleeved women's v-neck pocket tees. Initially I was planning to use the flowered fabric for some kind of rosette, but I chucked that idea at the last minute because I thought the dress worked well without it. As Tim Gunn says on Project Runway, "Edit!"


First, I cut the tee about two inches beneath the armpit seams. Then I cut several 2" wide strips to make ruffles with.


Next, I cut one of the women's tees, the lower half of which will be the skirt. I then cut the other tee into about 8 strips of 2" wide each for more ruffles.


Next I sewed down the middle of each strip, being careful not to back-stitch, with the tension on the highest setting and the widest straight stitch length.


This way the ruffle basically makes itself. I just kept adding strips to each ruffle a few inches before one strip would end. I needed about three strips to make one ruffle long enough to go all the way around the skirt.


With right sides facing, I inserted the skirt into the shirt top, and sewed 1/4" around the whole piece. This was tough and required some pinning to give me a gathered effect.


I turned it right side out and yahoo!!! I did add a ruffle embellishment around the neck just for fun.


Here's a recent post about another Ruffle Toddler Dress that I made in August.

Many thanks to the following links for ideas and inspiration for this dress:

Tea Rose Home

Happy Together

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