lemon dress tutorial

did you ever see a fabric and immediately you know how the item you’re going to make from it is going to look?

that’s what happened with this fabric. as soon as i saw the lemons, i envisioned a sunny yellow shift dress with lemon-shaped keyholes running down the front, backed with the lemon print.

that’s what i sketched out…
and that’s exactly how it turned out…



in my head i say “lemon-aahhhd”. was that from a movie? i can’t remember.

either way, i thought i was so funny when i named this dress…



i’m not doing a full tutorial for this dress. i’m just going to give the basics of how i took a simple shift dress and added the keyholes.

there’s tons of good tutes out there showing how to draft your own pattern from existing clothes. and that’s where i started—traced the bodice from an existing top that fit guinevere, and then extended the bottom with a very slight a-line to the length i needed.
i cut two of the front piece on the fold—a front and a lining, exactly the same—which
gave me this:

 


(folded in half)
put the lining to the side, and work with just the front for this part.
i measured the length, minus about a one inch allowance at the hem and the neckline. i had almost exactly 32”, which gave me four keyholes of 8”. you can decide the size of your keyhole openings based on whatever is easiest to divide into your length :)

i marked my fabric down the length, on the fold, every 8”
then a made a template of a keyhole and traced that onto my fabric.



to insure that my keyhole openings still stayed pretty much the same, i folded my front piece accordion-style and pinned it to prevent shifting, then cut all four at once



then i opened it up and laid it on top of my print fabric



and traced the keyholes with a disappearing fabric marker



i pinned the print fabric to the center front of my lining piece, and stitched it down outside the lines i had traced—so none of my stitches would show through the keyhole openings. then i trimmed the print fabric fairly close to my stitched lines. i didn’t want to use any more of the print fabric then i had to, simply because i didn’t want the print to show through the yellow top fabric.
finally i trimmed all the edges of the keyhole openings with purchased white bias tape.



on the corners i cut the bias tape off 1/2” longer and folded the extra under before stitching it down to give it a nice clean edge.



i also made one keyhole opening in my two back pieces and trimmed that with the white bias tape

(i

used one of my cut out pieces as a pattern for the back keyhole)
i sewed the dress up like normal, treating the lining and front piece as one.
and i finished up the front by sewing big white buttons at each of the keyhole points—i stitched them through both the lining and the front to keep the two tacked together.



the back keyhole i left open at the top, and made long ribbons of the print fabric which tie together in a big bow and hang down the back…



the ruched headband…well, i did that on a whim. i took no pictures, so i have nothing to show you. but i will direct you to the tutorial katy did at no big dill, which i’m sure is way better than whatever i cobbled together ;)




and there you have it: one tall, frosty glass of lemon-mod!








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