does anyone have a pattern for an apron dress? i have instructions for assemblage of skirt+bodice, but i need a skirt pattern, or just a full dress pattern. (yeah i already tried winging it, but i have flawed math skills so it didnt go over so well) haha also letting my beginner colors show through, waht is a proper way to cut panels from a piece of fabric? cutting them out of the middle would waste a bunch of fabric, and i saw this nifty folding methood but im not exactly sure how it went. any help would be great! thanks mamas.
for the pattern, I don't rightly know, because I don't use them, I say wing it and go by trial and error, that's how I learned (mind you, my first dress looked like a patchwork sack, and the colors were AWFUL, lol) as far as cutting out pannels, I just cut from the edge of the fabric, I don't know any folding methods... good luck!
looks like some other mamas were looking for a same such pattern, and i finally figured it out. 1.Measure under your boobs. now, divide this number by the number of panels you want. this number is how wide the top of each panel should be. 2.figure out how many inches you want the spin to be ( 100-120 for NICE spin). and divide this by the number of panels. this is how wide the bottom of each panel should be. 3. find the middle of your piece of fabric and mark it the desired length of your panel. then measure half the width of the top off either side of the middle line. then do the same for the bottom. i used a long stick to connect the 2 and make sure the lines were straight. so cut all your panels and sew em together. 4. to measure yourself for the bodice take your bust measurement and subract 4 inches (or however much back you want to show.) it should be long enough to cover your boobs, and should end where you measured for the skirt panels. for the loops, just take a little rectangle of fabric sew it into a tube, rightsides together, and turn it rightside out. you can do the same but longer for straps or you can use ribbon. 5. sew the pieces together, but leave about an inch or so on either side of the bodice. 6.fold over a casing for the elastic and sew down.(i personally prefer 3/8 inch elastic, but use whatever you like) take some elastic on a safety pin and thread through the casing. the safety pin isnt necessary, but its friggin hard without it. 7. stretch the elastic and sew it down TIIIIGHT( extending into that 1 inch space between the bodice and skirt) with your grr heavy duty stitch.then backstitch over it. seriously, this stuff needs to be well attached. 8.hem it all up and you're finished!! (adapted from direction given by covenofone on http://groups.yahoo.com/group/hippiesew/ )
Basically for the skirt of the apron dress you would cut as many pannels that you need out of each fabric that you are using. I use mostly quilters cotton so the direction isn't as important as if you were using a patterned fabric with a definate direction. So what I do is measure the bodice and then add a few inches for the skirt part and round up to a nice number that is divisible by the number of panels you are making. So if you are making a dress with 8 pannels and a 35 inch bust I would round the finished skirt measurment up to 40 inches and then make my pannels 5 inches at the top and 10 inches at the bottom. Then I mark out my first pannel by marking a center line with chalk on the first fabric. Then for the bottom I mark 5 inches to each side, then for the top i mark 2.5 inches to each side of the center line. Connect the corner dots on the diagonal and you have your panel. then you can use that first panel as a pattern for all the rest of your panels. Then all you need to do is cut the waistband and the drawstring and sew everything together. Hope this helps.
