The Astoria Dress

This post is part of a month long series called 'Pattern Makeover Month.' I took a simple a-line, peasant dress and 'made-it-over' into many different styles. For more information, go here.

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Another fun embellishment!

Once you have the dress finished as instructed, add some fluff. Cut strips of chiffon in 1-1.5 inch strips. You will need about 8 strips for a size 5T.

Hand wind a bobbin with elastic thread, stretching the thread about 50% as you wind. Place the elastic wound bobbin in your machine. Thread the machine with regular thread. Set your stitch length to the longest it will go. Sew a straight line down the middle of your chiffon strips, adding the next strip as you go by overlapping about 1/2 inch.

Once you have your chiffon shirred, start stitching it on your dress, starting on one side seam close to the hem of the dress. Use a slight zigzag stitch and sew right over your shirred seam, like so:

Once you get back to where you started, overlap the ruffle just a hair and cut. Move up the dress so that the ruffles are close, but not overlapping. Make three rows. Take the left-over ruffle strip and make a pattern above your lines of ruffles. Lay them out in a pleasing way and stich into place. I made three swirls and started stitching from the outer edge, inward.

A little sneak peek!