Yellow Maxi Dress from Vintage Sheet

Due to people wanting to sew their own dress, here's a quick rundown of how I made this dress,
The Yellow Maxi Dress Mini Tutorial 


 You can purchase the full PDF printable pattern to have a full step by step photo pattern with actual pieces to cut out in 5 sizes for those that don't want to just hack out pieces on your own.
The Maxi Sheet Dress Full Print-at-home PDF Sewing Pattern
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This was a last minute project.  It kind of popped in my head from nowhere.  Usually I'm inspired by a fabric, or I'm trying to duplicate something or there's a series of ideas that lead to a project.

But this dress kind of just came to me, and I had a night where my kids were in bed and my husband was at worked and it came together fast.

The Yellow Maxi Dress

{from a vintage sheet}

Once I sorted in my head how I wanted a full length maxi dress, I realized all the fabric it would require.  Then I realized a sheet would be large enough and light weight rather than buying yards of fabric.  I happened to have this yellow sheet with the unique floral design just at the top.  

So this is basically how the large skirt pieces were cut out. The bodice and sleeves were squeezed in from the surrounding scraps. 

Using the sheet has it's advantages:

-it's actually vintage and makes the dress feel vintage

-unique floral print

-cheap: purchased at thrift store for $2.00

-comfortable almost silky feel

Disadvantages:

-near sheer, meaning I had to line the whole dress (I used a butter chiffon from Walmart's $5.00 for 5 yard mini-bolt)

-limited fabric, so if you just hack out your pieces like I do, it can get scary

But in this hack job, the dress turned out great I think, and I really love it.  Not everything I make I end up just loving.  But so far this is one of those rare projects.

I guess I just feel.....elegant. 

Even though I'm not. 

Kind of like Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady at the horse race...she looks like she fits the part and then she opens her mouth: "Come on Dover!  Move your bloomin' ...."

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I love it although it may not totally be "my style"....but I don't really have a style.  With fashion, I'm pretty clueless and there's things I like and things I don't, but one thing is always important--it has to be comfortable.  And this dress is really flowy and comfy.

So more of the details.

First off, pockets!

There are very few dresses I make with out pockets.  Especially casual dresses/ skirts.  If I plan on wearing the thing all day long, it's got to have pockets.

I decided to take the skirt the whole way.  All the way to the floor.  I was trying it on before I put the sleeves on yesterday afternoon and my son saw me and said: "wow mom, yours dress is fancy."  I think this is what makes it feel fancy.  The full length skirt.  It makes me think of the Regency England period or something.

It actually may be a little too long. It just skims the floor, and as romantic as it looks, I don't want to be a swiffer pad, so I may hem it one more inch.  It reminds me of the part in Pride and Prejudice where the Bingley sisters are criticizing Lizzie for having a hem 6" deep in mud...and I can see how that would happen really fast. 

For the bodice I used a sweater as a pattern.  I like the funnel neck line.  It crosses, but keeps the angle of the crossing closer together so you don't have cleavage.  I made my own bias tape from the scraps to go around the neck so I wouldn't have to hem that curve or anything.  The skirt attaches to the bodice, which I cut pretty wide, and it's all shirred in rows sewn in a spiral.  This makes the bodice flowy and comfortable, but the waist is pulled in to give it some shape.  But to me it feels like I'm just wearing a comfortable big sack.

The back of the bodice is where I started getting down to a pile of scraps.  I had to use the sides of the sheet that had the floral print on them.  I did my best to match them up so it looked intentional, rather than using scraps just to get by.

The above picture you can also see the crease on the sleeve really well.  That's because I totally ran out of sheet and still needed to add sleeves.  Originally I had planned to make almost elbow-length flutter sleeves...but I had almost zero fabric left.  So I was down to a simple cap sleeve out of the sheet cuff.  So I had to cut open the cuff and since it's been folded and worn for decades, ironing it flat never really took the imprint of the fold out.  Maybe with time it will flatten and be less noticeable.  But there were virtually no scraps left on this dress, I had to use every morsel of the sheet...so a twin flat sheet on a big girl really cuts it close.

So from the side you can see the front of the skirt has the floral, the back of the skirt is plain yellow.

Where the front of the bodice is plain yellow, and the back of the bodice has the floral.  Kind of weird how that ended up.  But I didn't want to mess with the floral on the bodice front because it was overlapping.

So it seems a little more "fancy" than it really is, just a sheet with an extra long skirt.  I know most people probably wouldn't wear this dress just to kick it with the kids or run errands.  But I will, because it's comfortable, and no one can see my hairy legs...and it does make me feel a little thinner and prettier even though it will have baby spit-up and gooey hand print on it by lunch just like all my other clothes.

Celebrities pump gas in long yellow maxi dresses, so I wouldn't be the first.

Anyway, I wore it for the 4th of July and it didn't get in the way and we had a great holiday yesterday, hope the other Americans reading this did too.

Our little family enjoyed good food and a perfect view of fireworks, it was kind of a magical night.