Materials: 1-point-something yards red quilting print and 1/4 yard black broadcloth from JoAnn’s; invisible zipper; McCall’s 5584.

Time: Two evenings.

Cost: $15.

This was a super-fast project. That’s not surprising, however, since I chose not to really use the pattern at all. This is basically a big, long a-line skirt with straps attached, so the only thing that required any consideration at all was the fitting of the top band. No lining, identical front and back (because the symmetry plus a side zipper made it — lo and behold — even simpler to construct), and I made the shape of the dress fit the small amount of fabric that I had. Hemmed it, put on straps, and it was done in a few hours. Belts: the easiest way to avoid shaping, pleating, and gathering!

Note, however, that the same pattern (now sadly out of print, but still available online) can be used very successfully in order to dress up like the leg lamp from A Christmas Story.

Hanging up, you can see that it is, in fact, a big, vaguely A-shaped tube of fabric.

I also did some coordinating top stitching, partially because I was too lazy to want to change the thread color. It’s easy to add details when your project requires, like, two major seams.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 at 2:18 pm and is filed under diy, projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.