Toddler Flapper Ruffle Dress

Since I threw my husband his 1920's party, I've been a little obsessed with flapper dresses and with feathers. I had the left over fabric from the photo booth from his party, so I thought it'd only be appropriate to turn it into a flapper inspired dress for Chloe. I just made it up as I went, but later I found a tutorial how to make the bottom of the skirt if you want it.

I took an extra black shirt that no one was using and cut out the pattern for the dress. (The fabric was jersey, and I didn't take into consideration that it stretches, so if you use jersey fabric maybe trace it a little smaller than you normally would) My pattern was pretty much a rectangle of the width and length that I wanted the dress, then I cut out holes for the head and arms. I stitched them together and had the base of my dress.

For this next part you can look at this tutorial for better instructions and pictures. I took the black and white fabric and cut it into strips 6" wide and then sewed them together, so I would have 3" wide strips. I pulled the threads to gather the strips to get the ruffle look. I then sewed the ruffles onto the base of the dress.

After sewing the ruffles onto the dress, I cut another thin strip of white fabric (about 2" wide) the width of the dress. I sewed the fabric over the first ruffle to hide the raw edges. I thought that the dress still needed a little bit more, so I decided to sew on a few fabric flowers to the front of the dress. You can look at this previous tutorial to see how to make the ruffled flowers and you can use this tutorial to make the big fabric flower on top. (A way to make the fabric flower easier and faster is to hot glue the petals on instead of sewing each one)

Here's a better close up of the big flower

To complete the look, I made a feather headband to go with the dress. I just bought a bag of white feathers and hot glued them together and stuck them on a clip that I had wrapped with white ribbon. I then glued on an antique looking broach to cover the ends of the feathers. I personally like to make clips for headbands, that way I can just interchange them to match different outfits, but feel free to glue the feathers directly onto the headband instead of a clip. But Chloe LOVES this headband, mainly because the feathers are so soft.

Here's the look put together