Blue Tiered Mini Dress

With my honeymoon in the Seychelles fast approaching, I realized my wardrobe was lacking a casual wear-anywhere-anytime dress. I needed something cute, comfy, and absolutely no fuss. So I pulled out a lovely blue windowpane cotton lawn I purchased last summer from Fabric.com and got to work.

What you’ll need:

about 3 yards of 58” fabric
3/4” wide elastic, length measured to fit comfortably/snug around your chest + 2”

What it cost me:

$31 for 4 yds. 57″ cotton lawn (I only used about 3 yds.)
$3 matching blue cotton thread
$3 elastic

I did some math and came up with a simple three-tier dress design with tie straps. I ended up using about three yards of fabric for the main dress + lining (which I added last minute upon realizing how see-through the dress was).

I first sewed the four straps, leaving an opening on one end, and turned them right side out. Note that I used pinking shears on the edges to prevent fraying (which honestly didn’t help much).

And then I ironed the straps flat to complete them.

I then sewed the ends of each tier together using a French seam, which created the three tiers of the dress.

To sew the body of the dress together, I first started with the largest bottom tier. I used a large gathering stitch along the top, and gathered the fabric until it fit into the middle tier (see above photo).

I pinned the two tiers right sides together and sewed using a 1/2” seam allowance.

I repeated these steps with the middle tier – gathered the fabric using a gathering stitch, pinned it to the top (smallest) tier, and sewed together. This created the three-tier body of the dress.

I ended up serging the raw edges to prevent fraying.

It was at this point that I realized i needed/wanted to line the dress, so I cut out two large rectangular pieces of the same fabric and sewed them together using French seams. I also changed my original design a bit by deciding to add a 1” channel for the elastic instead of just folding over the top tier fabric.

Because of the redesign, I ended up cutting a few inches off the top of the top tier so the dress would remain the length I wanted. I sewed together the ends of the elastic channel, then pinned it right sides to the body of the dress and dress lining, sandwiched in the four straps, and sewed the three layers together. And of course, I serged the raw edges.

To finish off the elastic channel, I folded over the fabric, tucked in the raw edge, basted it down, and sewed right along the edge. I made sure to leave a small opening to allow for the insertion of elastic.

Getting the elastic through the channel was such a pain! Next time I’ll make the channel a bit wider. Once I weaved the elastic through, I sewed the ends together with a zigzag stitch, tucked it into the channel, and carefully sewed the hole closed. Be extra careful to make sure you don’t sew over the elastic!

The final step is to hem the bottom using a super narrow hem…

…and then the dress is done!

Isn’t it adorable? I absolutely love it.

Of course it came with me on our honeymoon to the Seychelles. I wore it for pre-wedding festivities too! (my something blue when picking up our marriage license).