The Tank Dress Tutorial!
Why would you buy a pre-made tank dress from Walmart or Forever21 which will be see through, very low cut and probably too short when you can easily custom make your own? Hi I'm Amber from The French Curve and I was so excited when Jacquilyn asked me to do a blog swap with her, I couldn't resist. What you'll need:
-A tank top that fits you, whether it be old or new, doesn't matter!
-1 yard of coordinating fabric, I prefer a good quality cotton by Moda
-coordinating thread
- sewing machine
Shall we get started?
-Put your tank top on and find where it hits the narrowest of your waistlinemark that spot.
-Cut your tank top 1inch longer for seam allowance.
-measure your waistline and choose your length
-Cut your fabric to be 2x your waistline, so I am a 31 so I ended up with two pieces each 31" wide.
Now we're going to sew the skirt together
-place your fabric face to face, as shown.
-iron, pin your sides together, and sew.
this will give you a rather large skirt and to gather it without making it bulky, lets add pleating. This is achieved by simply folding your fabric over it's self. I wouldn't fold more than 2" over and then pin it in place. Create your pleats till your waistline of your skirt is at the necessary width. you want to leave a little wiggle room so it's easy to get into, so I would leave it 2 inches bigger than your waist.
-Next you'll want to iron and then baste your pleats. Basting is accomplished by doing just a straight stitch at the longest stitch length at the very top of your pleats. This will keep your pleats in place without wasting a lot of thread doing so.
now that you have the waistline finished it's time to attach it to your tank top. flip your skirt inside out so the wrong side of the skirt is facing you. pin the right side of your fabric to the right side of your tank, following the line you marked when you measured your tank top.
feel free to stretch your tank top to match up with your skirt, that's the great thing about a knit.
-using a straight stitch attach your skirt to your tank. I gave myself a 1/4 of an inch from the edge. When doing your straight stitch make sure you lock the beginning and end of your stitch by using the reverse.
-Now flip your dress right side out and take a gander. If it looks like it's kind of bunching at the waistline which it'll most likely do because of the weight of your fabric. Iron the waist nice and flat and then do what is called a Top stitch. This is done by simply finding your little ditch (where the fabric meets your tank) and sewing in that. This will make your skirt lay flat.
-Finish up by hemming the bottom, I just did a simple straight stitch and then a did a pin-tuck.
a pin-tuck is an easy way to add detail to your hem.
-simply fold your fabric over to the desired length of the pin tuck, I did about an inch and then sew an inch from the the edge of your fold.
Iron it flat and voila, easy as pie!
You now have an adorable dress which looks great with a thick belt, wearable in any weather. For winter you could even pair it with some leggings and a cardigan, Adorable! and it's as comfy as can possibly be.
Thank you so much and I hope you enjoyed the Tutorial, and feel free to come visit me at The French Curve.
