Basic Balloon Dress Tutorial + Patterns

I owe you patterns of this Balloon Dress that I promised to post last week. So I pay my promise now, with a short tutorial about making this thing :)

I hope you can understand this very short tutorial (I wrote it shortly after I woke up early this morning and couldn't shut my eyes anymore)

What you need :

- Outer Fabrics / Focus Fabrics

- Lining Fabrics
- Fusible Interfacing

- A Matching Button

- Contrast Threads, etc

How To Make :

1. Cut Lining Pieces Front and Back. If you want to add shape onto your dress, you can add fusible interfacing on the neck and sleeve area. And then sew it on right & left side :

2. Cut Upper Pieces Front and Back. If you want to add MORE shape onto your dress, you can add fusible interfacing on the neck and sleeve area. And then sew it on right & left side :

3. Put the Upper Pieces inside the Lining Pieces : Right side of front and back upper piece meet the right side of front and back lining piece

The wrong side of the lining pieces will be on the front

Armholes & Necklines
Stitch the armholes & neckline :
- Front outer-piece with front lining-piece, and back outer-piece with back lining-piece
I mean, I sew the front armholes & necklines separately from back armholes & necklines

- Please be patient, in my version I haven't sew the shoulder seams. I need to let them separated to turn the dress inside out

Button Closure
Don't forget to make button closure with any scrap left from upper fabric :
- Cut the fabric scraps into a tiny bias tape; width approximately 2 cm, length +/- 6 cm
- Fold it into 4 pieces and iron it, as any bias tape tutorial in this world says
- The last thing is top-stitching your tiny button closure
- Place it between back upper piece and back lining piece, and sew the back closure

4. Turning The Dress

- Turn the dress inside-out.

- I sew the shoulder seams, that is between front outer-fabric and back outer-fabric , and between front lining-fabric and back lining-fabric. I recommend using slip stitches/blind stitches for sewing the shoulder seams.

- After all the shoulder seams are done, you can top-stitch the armholes and necklines

5. Making Ruffled hem
- Gather hem of upper/outer fabric (back and front) with (very) loose stitches and make ruffles

6. Join the ruffled hem with lining. I attach the ruffled outer fabric into the lining fabric using slip
stitches/blind stitches. I hand-sew the slip/blind stitches. It is a little frustrating, but it worths the wait

And finish !!

Disclaimer : The patterns below are for my girl toddler, who is almost 2 years old. Her height is 98 cm. You can modify the patterns, but you can not use them for commercial use. If you make clothes made from my patterns and publish the clothes in your blog or wherever you want, please include my name & my blog address as the source of the patterns.

The patterns (I didn't include any sewing allowances in my patterns, so please add 1/4 inch or 1/2 inch sewing allowance yourself) :

- Basic Balloon Dress Front Lining Patterns
- Basic Balloon Dress Front Upper Patterns
- Basic Balloon Dress Back Lining Patterns
- Basic Balloon Dress Back Upper Patterns

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