Little Girl Bubble Dress

When Spring rolls around you'll want to have adorable outfits for your little girl. The Little Girl Bubble Dress by Jessica Gerblick is perfect for family gatherings or picnics. Let this free sewing tutorial show you how to make a dress they'll love to wear.

Materials:

• A T-Shirt or onesie that fits well / slightly away from the body (not tight, as the cotton will not stretch with the knit material once sewn on)
• anywhere from ½ yd to ¾ yd fabric, depending on size on child
• Coordinating thread

Let’s Get Cutting:

You will need to determine how long you want the skirt to be, based on where the waist of your dress. Once you have that length measurement, double it.

Cut (1) of your Length x 44" W fabric.



Add about 2” to that, and this will give you the Length.

For the Width, I simply cut a long strip, as we will be gathering the waist around the top of the dress...mine happens to be 36”W x 22” Long.

Let’s Get Sewing:
Fold the fabric in half, right sides together, matching the Length seam. Pin and sew for a back skirt seam. You will now have a tube of fabric. Press seam.

Sew a line of gathering stitches along the top edge of the skirt, and another line of gathering stitches approx. 2" beneath that row.

Gather the top line of stitches until the skirt is the same width around as the shirt.

With fabric wrong side out, slip around shirt upside down with skirt seam in the back center, and with right sides together, pin to shirt. Sew. See Photo:

It helps to use zig zag stitches when sewing cotton to knit for a little extra stretchy room.

You will now have this:

Now, gather the 2nd line of gathering stitches until they are the size of the shirt. Match the 2nd line of gathered stitches to where the skirt currently meets the shirt seam and pin in place. This will result in a ruffle pushing up 1" around the top. See Photo:

Zig Zag stitch or sew a straight line over the gathered stitch line, securing ruffle in place. Zig Zag stitch will afford a bit more stretch, but straight stitch is more secure.

The top of your skirt is now in place. To turn this into a bubble skirt, we will now be doing the following...

Sew a line of gathering stitches along the bottom edge of the skirt.

Gather the third set of gathering stitches at the bottom of the skirt to the size of the shirt.

Fold bottom hem under 1/4" and Press.

Now lift the entire skirt up towards the neckline, so that the bottom of the shirt is showing.

Take the bottom skirt hem and pin to the shirt. This will result in enclosing the raw gathered edges of the hem. (You can alter your skirt length here by determining where you pin the bottom of the skirt to the shirt.)

Stitch in place. See Photo:

 

Flip skirt down and you are finished!

To make the tie sash waste, simply take a 5” x 44” piece of fabric, fold in half right sides together and sew along outer raw edge, leaving a 4” opening to turn. Turn right side out and Press. Slip stitch opening closed. Sew along outer edge for a finished look.

*Note - if you want to use a tighter fitting shirt or onesie, I would suggest making this bubble skirt portion over a 1/4" - 1/2" piece of elastic and zig zag stitching that to the shirt instead. This will result in allowing the cotton to stretch more easily with the knit.