Tutorial: Ruffle Dress from Cardigan Sweater

Yesterday, I showed you a preview of the Valentine's day ruffle dress I made for my daughter.

I took this cardigan sweater and made it over from drab 

to fab!

Like Dorthy, lets switch to color and I will show you how.

I started out with this sweater that I had in my closet.

I buy things like this at garage sales for less than a dollar with the hope of them finding a new life one day.

At a fabric store closing sale last year, I fell in love with these ruffles.  I picked three yards of it up not knowing what I was going to do with it until I saw how well the ruffles matched this sweater and the idea came to life.

I started off by taking apart the sweater piece by piece.  

I cut the buttons off of the front and pinned the sweater closed.  

Then I sewed down the front of the sweater to keep it closed.

Next, I cut the sleeves open, 

layed them flat

 and cut long rectangles that were 6 inches wide for the top of the dress.

Both rectangles were folded over in half and pinned in place
one on the front, and one on the back

Between the front fold and the top of the dress, I pinned the first layer of ruffles.
Each ruffle set was 4 ruffles wide.

Once it was sewn into place I had the top part of my dress

I continued to layer the ruffles down the dress 

making sure I left enough ruffles overhanging so that the ruffles 

were longer than the dress on the sides.

I continued on until the bottom of the dress.

Then I put the right sides of the front and back together and pinned them in place.

Be careful to make sure all of the ruffles are getting sewn into the sides and are facing the same direction.

After I sewed down both sides, I took this old camisole (remember how I used it last week to fancy up some boot socks from another old sweater?) and cut the straps off.  I hand sewed them onto the dress

After I was finished, this is all that I had left of the sweater.

And that was it!

Now you have a fancy ruffle dress from an old sweater!

Kick your heels off

put on a fancy hat

And get ready for some fun!