Scrap Toddler Onesie Dress

My child believes she is a princess. And real princesses only wear dresses. So, coupled with her aversion to wearing any kind of two piece outfit and my hatred for onesies (not good for cloth diapering or potty training - the only two modes I have ever been in with my kid), I set out to make her a dress with scrap materials to add to her wardrobe.

First, I scrounged around for my outfit in all my salvaged craft supplies. A free onesie hand-me-down, a ribbon off of a birthday package, a stained yellow tshirt and a button that I salvaged from a shirt before throwing it in the rag pile.

I used the side of the shirt since I was trying to avoid the tar like stain that had landed the shirt in the material pile. I folded the onesie in half and laid it on top of the shirt.

Then I cut out a skirt of two pieces, slightly larger at the waist to allow for seam allowance. If you are hoping for a pattern there isn't any, I just cut till I liked it. I would hold it up every now and then to see how it fell and when it looked good, I quit cutting.

I then sewed a small hem along the bottom of the skirt pieces and then sewed up the side edges of the skirt making sure the hem s were on the same side as the side seams. I then turned the onesie inside out as well.

Then I pinned the shirt edge to the skirt edge all the way around making sure the side seams of both the shirt and the skirt matched.

I turned the dress inside out and if you want to you could end there. But I had matching scraps to add!

I wanted to make a faux bow in the middle of the waist, so I marked the center of the ribbon and made loops of the same size next to it (picture will explain) and pinned it to make sure I had it centered right. (BTW, she was determined to be a princess hand model. Every time my camera was brought out, she insisted her hand be photographed, in case you are wondering why her hand keeps showing up, I couldn't always crop it out!)

Then with matching thread I tacked it right in the middle with a few sewing machine stitches.

Then I pinned the ribbon on the dress with the faux bow in the middle. My hand model distracted me a lot at this point and unfortunately, it turned out a bit off-centered. (Oh, well, it's purpose is to be a play-in-the-mud dress anyway.)

Then I sewed along the top and the bottom of the ribbon and folded the ribbon ends under so that the ribbon ended at the dress's seams.

Then I hand sewed on a button in the middle of the faux bow.

Here is the finished dress.

And the hand model princess checking it out and striking a pose.

Maybe one day the MakingDoMom will learn how to sew for real, but for only 20 minutes worth of work, I'm happy with it. For really dressy dresses, I'll buy them at the thrift store already put together!