Trends: Ruffled Off-the-Shoulder Dress

Another day another off-the-shoulder something. A while ago I discovered this absolutely gorgeous Ukrainian (!) loungewear label - Sleeper. Specifically their out of this world beautiful ruffles. Made for sleeping or not, I want to copy everything from their collection (and considering how sleek and simple the pieces are, I probably will). The similar idea crop top I made last year formed the basis for this dress, with a couple of adjustments - the key being a fuller ruffle and a casing for the elastic that's  slightly lower, so the top of the ruffle pops a bit. And pockets obviously.

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TOOLS:

Fabric (I used a thicker rayon) 1.5 m  |  Scissors  |  Thread & Sewing machine  |  Pins  |  Elastic (I used 2-cm wide, enough to go around your shoulders where the dress will sit comfortably, but tightly enough so the dress doesn't fall off)  |  Safety pin

I. First I made my dress piece, which was a remake of the top here - Same measurements mostly, only changes: length of about 80 cm, and a slight A-line from the armpits down to the hem (laid flat the width of the dress at the hem for me was around 65 cm). I also added pockets using the same technique I did here.

II. Next I did my ruffle piece, similarly as with the crop top, just a bit fuller and longer. I cut two long rectangles 110 cm long and 28 cm wide each, sewed them together at both short ends to form a big circle. Then I pressed the first fold on the reverse, all along one of the edges (about 0.5 cm is fine):

.. Then I folded again, placing my elastic on top to get the right measure. As you can see my second fold ended up being 4 cm. You could do a wider fold if you wanted the end result to be a ruffle with a more pronounced top edge. You'll see what I mean soon.

After pressing those folds well with my iron, I marked the center point of the neckline of the dress, and the center point of the circular ruffle piece (measured from the side seams). Then pinned the dress onto the ruffle as shown below, wrong side of dress against the inside of the fold I had just pressed.

After doing that at the center point of both sides of the ruffle, I brought the fold down and pinned it in place all the way around, pinning the dress in between the fold like this:

III. Then just sewed two straight stitches all around the ruffle - one a couple of mm from the bottom edge, and another so that the space in between the stitches is just enough for the elastic to fit through. Remember to leave a couple cm gap in the lower stitch for the insertion of the elastic. You want to make this pretty snug, only a couple mm more than the width of the elastic, that way it's harder for the elastic to get twisted in its tunnel.

This is where, if you did a wider fold to begin with - you would see how the part at the top with no elastic could be wider, giving you more pop. I actually regret not leaving more room up there, I should've left the gap between the top edge and the upper stitch at maybe 2-3 cm to get closer to this look. Might need to make a version in a different colour still...

IV. Then it's just a matter of inserting in your elastic (as you can see below I did a doubled up elastic to get the firmness I wanted, just zig-zagged together) with the help of a safety pin.

V. When all the way through, just sew the ends of the elastic together and close the gap in the stitch.

Finally, I hemmed both the ruffle and the dress with a double fold.

xo,

Julia