How to make a work/play dress
These are instructions on how to sew a dress that you can wear to work and get messy in and then wear out in the evening. It was designed by architecture students for architecture students. The idea was to have something you could wear in studio while you were doing messy things like casting and making models that would convert into something usable for a review. This dress uses side flaps that can either close around the back to hide the play dress or close around the front to hide the messy dress.
Ingredients:
2 yards of pretty fabric - heavy enough so that is doesn’t have to be lined
2 yards of muslin or another all purpose fabric
about 5 yards of ribbon
thread to match the nice fabric
Tools:
sewing machine
scissors
measuring tape
pencil
Step 1 - Measurements
Measure yourself around your chest - under your armpits, above your breasts. Don’t measure too tightly - this will be how tight the top of the dress is, and you will need to get it on over your head. We’ll call this ChestMeasure.
Measure from under your armpits down to where you want the dress to fall to - e.g. your knees, your ankles, mid-thigh. We’ll call this LengthMeasure.
Measure from under your armpits down to the widest point of your hips. We’ll call this HipLength.
Finally, measure around the widest spot on your hips. This will be the minimum width the dress must be at HipLength. We’ll call it HipWidth.
Step 2 - Creating the pattern
We won’t actually be creating a separate pattern. Instead, we’ll draw the final shape right on the cloth.
Lay out the two pieces of cloth flat, one directly on top of the other.
Fold them in half so that the fold is across the short dimension.
This is what you will cut out of the cloth, with the fold in the cloth on the right side of the drawing:
This is what the geometries are to create the curves:
Draw lines on the cloth using your own measurements. Cut on the heavy dotted lines. Don’t cut down the fold! When you open up the folded pieces of cloth, you should have two pieces of cloth with approximately the following shape:
Step 3 - Sewing the dress
Place the two pieces of cloth together again, matching their edges, with their good sides towards each other (right sides together).
On the two curved edges - top and bottom - measure in one quarter of the curve from either side and make a small mark. Draw two lines down from the upper marks to the bottom marks.
Place about 18″ of ribbon in the upper corners, as in the following diagram (ribbons are red), but they must be placed between the two pieces of cloth.
Sew along the dashed line, 5/8″ from the edge (normal seam allowance).
Turn the dress right side out. This is approximately what you should have:
At this point it’s a good idea to try the dress on. If the top opening is too loose, you can turn it back inside out and extend the seams towards the middle slightly. If it’s too tight, rip open the edge of the seams to give yourself more room.
The openings at the top and the bottom still are not hemmed. Hem those now by folding the edge over towards the inside. To match the hem with the side seams, make the fold 5/8″ from the edge.
Sew on the right side of the fabric 1/2″ in from the edge, sewing the fold permanently closed. By sewing on the outside of the dress (right side of the fabric) you can ensure that your hem is straight. Because the hem is so visible, you will want to make sure your thread matches the fabric well, or choose sometime that contrasts if you like that look better.
Step 4 - Attaching the ribbons
You have the side ribbons, but you need to attach the shoulder straps to keep the dress on.
Put the dress on. The nice fabric should be against your back and the muslin against your front. With the dress on, ask a friend to help you mark where you would like the shoulder straps to be attached in the front. Measure out enough ribbon to start in the front, cross over one shoulder to the middle of your back, wrap around you once and tie in back. Measure out another piece the same length.
Place one of the ribbons against the inside of the dress, where you marked the shoulder strap location on the muslin front of the dress. About 1/2″ of the ribbon should overlap against the inside of the dress. Sew the ribbon to the cloth with an X-in-a-box pattern:
Do the same with the other shoulder ribbon.
Mark the middle of the back of the dress along the top hem, on the nice fabric. Cut a small piece of ribbon, about 2″ long, and fold it into a flat U-turn.
Sew this to the inside of the back of the dress, where you made the mark on the nice fabric. Use the same X-in-a-box stitch.
Step 5 - Try on the dress
The dress is now finished. To wear it, put it over your head with the nice fabric against your back and the muslin against your front. Pass the shoulder ribbons over your shoulders and string them through the ribbon loop in the back.
To wear the dress to work in, tie the side flaps together in back and wrap the long ends of the shoulder straps from the back, around your front back again to tie in back. You should be surrounded by muslin with a bit of fancy showing in your back (right hand photos). To wear the dress to play in, tie the side flaps together in front and wrap the long ends of the shoulder straps from the back, around your front under your breasts and back to tie in back. You should be surrounded by fancy cloth, with a slit in front showing brief moments of muslin (left hand photos).
Step 6 - Modify the dress
You can play with how the ribbons are arranged. You may want to have extra long ribbons to wrap multiple times around you. You may like to loop the side flap ribbons through the back loop. You may want to add extra ribbons down the flaps to keep them closed tightly their whole length.
You can add extras to the dress. If you make the fancy cloth slightly wider than the muslin, you can add a box pleat in the back, just under the ribbon loop. This gives the dress a little extra flounce in the back. You can also line the back of the dress so when you’re wearing the play version you have more than one layer covering your back to balance the three layers weighing down your front. You can also experiment with different types of fabric, layering tulle over cloth to make a light poofy dress or using heavy brocade for a more formal look.
Have fun and be creative!