Summer night gown:

I made a summer night gown for Gwen out of some princess fabric we found in walmart's clearance fabric section. (for those of you who checked out the sale I hope you found as much good stuff as I did. I hit the sale 3 different days and got a lot of stuff for quite a good deal!!!) I hope they leave enough stuff so that we don't have to leave town every time we want to do a project.

The gown came out pretty much like I had envisioned it. I had wanted to use some ribbon, string it through the neck line (one in the front and one in the back.) But decided that it wouldn't work right. Looking at the finished product I think I should had stuck to my original plan. It would have been faster and less frustrating.
I began the project letting Gwen help me, but by the end I was yelling at her that she needed to leave me alone so I didn't get mad at her. (oops, it was too late for that. Better luck staying calm next time I suppose.) Here are the steps we took, I've changed them a little so go with my original plan so next time it's done the way I want it.

1. I held the fabric up to Gwen and cut it off to the appropriate length, remembering that I needed to leave extra fabric to turn under on the top and bottom.
2. I took that fabric and folded it in half, touching the sides together, not the top and bottom.
3. Then I put the pieces on top of one another and folded them in half side to side again. I cut off part of the top corner to make arm holes.
4. I sewed bias tape along the right side of the fabric on each arm hole, folded it over and stitched in the ditch on the other side.
5. I folded down the top to make a casing for the ribbon on both the front and back. I pressed the casing and sewed it.
6. Sew the side seems together. The seem should start on the top with a larger seem allowance and taper out to a normal 5/8ths of and inch about 1/2 way through the garment.
7. Now string the ribbons through the front and back of the neck line and tie them together at the shoulders.
8. Try the gown on and choose a length. Press in a hem and then sew it with the machine.

The dress I made Gwen is a 3T size, but if the ribbons are used, the dress will stretch to fit several sizes as long as it is not too short.