Special Tutorial: Freya Chocolate inspired Sleeping Dress (For Humans :D)

Dear Readers,

today I'm very excited to present you a new sewing tutorial.
But this time it is not for tiny Sylvanians, it's for ourselves :).

At the moment it's summer in Germany and although it's not that warm I thought I could get myself a new sleeping dress. And when I looked at my Löffel family suddently an idea popped up in my mind: Why not sewing a sleeping dress, which looks like Luna's/Freya's dress?

So no sooner than thought, I started my new project. If you would also like to have your own Chocolate rabbit inspired sleeping dress, feel free to follow my tutorial :).

You need:
- a classical red polka dot fabric (I'm a small person, so I just bought one metre fabric: 1x1,40 m); best is cotton or linen
- white cotton or linen fabric 
- a yellow ribbon (I again bought cotton)
- white lace (for the bodice part)
- fitting yarn
- needles (if you want to handsew) or a sewing machine

Important: Wash you fabric first before you start sewing, otherwise your finished dress might shrink in the washing machine.

Step 1: Create your pattern

- Take out a t-shirt which has a loose fit.

This shirt is very big for me, I used it as a comfy sleeping t-shirt, so when I take it as a pattern I won't add any seam allowance, but if you take a smaller shirt or want to have it very loose, take care that you add at least 0.5 cm seam allowance! 

- Stick together a few pages of paper, you can also use baking paper or special sewing paper (was too lazy to get mine out^^).

- Fold the t-shirt in half and place it close to the edge of the paper.

- Fold in the sleeves. Take care that you follow the seam.

- Draw around the t-shirt and copy the shape of the shirt.

Do you see the drawn line?

- Now extend the line to the bottom of your paper - take care that you draw an A-shape. The side of the dress should run out (Is that the right word?^.^)

- This is how it would look if I would like to have a long dress.

- If you want a shorter dress, like me, cut the pattern to your desired length. Mine is now XY cm long.

- Time for the sleeves: Put your pattern on another piece of paper and trace that part, where the sleeve is attached to the dress.

- Draw the rest of the sleeves. You just have to decide here how wide you want to have your sleeves. I orientated myself very much on the original ones.

This is your complete pattern :)

Step 2: The Cutting

- Fold your fabric like that...

... and place your dress pattern onto the fabric. Pin it, trace the shape and cut it out.

- Repeat for the back part.

- You have now 2 pieces.

- Cut out your desired neckline. But take care that you don't cut too much, you have to hem and neaten it later.

- Again fold your fabric and pin the sleeve pattern at it. Trace it to the fabric and cut out.

- Repeat for sleeve 2.

You have now 4 pieces.

Step 3: Hem all parts!

Step 4: The Sewing.

- Pin back and front together. Right side to right side, so you will sew on the wrong side of the fabric. Let the sleeve parts open :).

The black lines show your frst seams

- Sew together the sleeves, like this:

- Now pin the sleeves to the dress...

... and sew them close. Take care that they don't shift. The seam of the sleeves should touch the seam of the dress.

It already looks like a dress!

Step 5: Neaten all seams: neckline, bottom seam and the sleeves.

Step 6: Let's add the details!

Step 6.1.: The "Peter-Pan"-collar + The bodice part

- Freya is wearing a "Peter Pan"-collar around her neck, so let's start with that. I just sewed on the front part of the collar, because I think it is more comfortable for a sleeping dress. If you want to make a full collar,you will find lots of tutorials on the internet I think (You can also ask me of course :)).

- Place a piece of paper inside your dress close to the neckline.

- Draw around your neckline (you just need one half)

- Than "add" the rest of the collar. You can decide how big and/or curvy it should be.

So sorry for the bad quality, I tried to redraw my lines with paint, but you see the horrible failed result XD, my cutout (next pic) looks much better^^.

- Test your pattern on your dress

Yep, this is the right round shape I was talking about^^.

- Pin it to your fabric, trace it and take care that you add seam allowance!

- Cut out 4 pieces

- Sew 2 together

- Turn them around and close the gap. I sewed around the collar completely.

Before you sew them onto your dress, sew on the lace.

Now you can add the collar:)

Step 6.2.: The Lace/Ruffles

- When you look at Freya you see that she has also pretty lace attached to the bottom and the sleeves of her dress. Of course you can buy yourself that lace and sew it to the dress, but you can also add ruffles to the bottom part, like I did. Both versions look very nice I think.

- For the ruffles: Measure the circumfence of your bottom seam, double it and cut a stripe, using the white cotton. Mine is:

- Hem and neaten the fabric.

- Use the running stich on top of the fabric, when you arrived at the end, pull the yarn. Your fabric will crinkle. Pull until your stripe has the length of the bottom seam of your dress.

I'm so sorry that I have no picture, I took it, but I fear it wasn't saved on my camera -.-, so I did this "fantastic" paint-picture to illustrate^^.

- Sew the ruffles to the bottom of your dress.

- For the sleeves I simply cut out 2 white rectangles, hemed and neatened the fabric and sewed them to the sleeves.
Of course you can also add ruffles or lace :).


Step 6.3. The Flower (in case you want to add one)
I took a few pictures, I think they are more the less self-explaining, if not feel always free to ask me :)

Attach the flower with a few stiches to the dress.

I personally won't wear the flower on the dress,  the yellow is just to bright^^.

And your done :).

That's how it looks, when it's worn. I had big trouble with the lighting (The windows in our flat are very weirdly constructed -.-), so I have four pics in different positions and  angles...

And together with Luna Löffel :D.

You see that weird light? The dress' colour is a combination of the ones taken inside and the ones outside... *cries*. Hopefully I can take a better picture in the future...

What do you think? I hope you like this idea and it was a helpful tutorial. It is hard to explain those sewing steps in English, so I hope my instructions were clear and that the pics could help too. 

Next time I'll be back with a review about the canal rowing boat set :).

Yours Kyra