Making: Gathered Sleeveless Babydoll Dress with Vertical Ruffle Details

In this perpetual year of 2020 I open my closet in the morning to get dressed, say hello to all the pretty things hanging there, and grab a lounge set. I was missing sewing though, so this dress I figured was a middle meeting point between comfy home wear and something more put-together.

The dress is a combination of parts of previous makes, so this is more a collection of previous tutorials:

I started by drafting a simple V-neck top - you could use the measurements from this dress for a looser fit with a round neckline, this one for a square neckline, there's also the mini V option... The measurements in the image below got me a slightly closer fit than I normally do (I'm EU36/US4).

I finished the arm holes and the neckline using bias tape - see here for the arm holes & if doing a round neckline. There are a couple of ways to finish a bias bound V neck, here's one of them - I was running very low on matching bias tape so did a seam at the bottom of the V instead of a fold.

Tutorials take a lot of time & effort to create, and I choose to make mine available for free. If you enjoy this guide, you can support my work with a donation that feels right for you, here.

Then I had my ready top:

Next I cut two strips of fabric for the ruffles. Here's how to finish the ruffles and attach to the top. I did a 2X multiplier for my ruffles on this one, and after doing the double folds on the short edges & one long edge, my strips were 5 cm wide. I attached them to the top so they went just slightly over the arm holes at the shoulders.

After gathering my ruffles, pinning them on the top and sewing in place, the only thing left was to add the skirt piece. I cut two simple rectangles, double the width of my top and 60 cm long, sewed the sides together, gathered and attached to the top, then hemmed with a wide double fold. You could also go for an exposed ruffle edge.

xo,

Julia