The Guillotine Dress

Here's my two part dress! It was even easier than I thought. The skirt fabric is an Urban Outfitters curtain and is all kinds of light and breezy. The blouse is something that Zion bought me a million years ago that I haven't fit into in ages, but have been too attached to to give away. I love the result. It's comfortable and lovely.The basic shape of the skirt is just a big tube, with one seam at the back, gathered under the elastic. I might go back and make it a little trimmer, since I'll have more occasion to wear it post baby. Let's face it, bed rest with a 3 year old isn't exactly a dressing gown and fainting couch type of gothic adventure.I didn't take any process pics, and I hadn't planned on making a whole tutorial, but this was so simple I'd love to share. Here's how I did it.

1) Cut a big rectangle of skirt fabric - 55" wide by 36" long. 36"is the length of the skirt, and 55" is what I needed to wrap all the way around the belly.

2) Cut a piece of 2"elastic to 1" shorter than your waist measurement.

3) Pin and sew top edge of skirt to elastic, right side of fabric to wrong side of elastic. Pull the elastic, stretching it as you work so it's flush with your fabric as it runs through your machine. I used a medium width zigzag stitch.

4) Pin and sew the skirt closed. I started at the elastic end and worked down to the bottom.

5) Behead your blouse, leaving plenty for a seam allowance.

6) Pin and sew bottom edge of the beheaded blouse to the top edge of the elastic. Right side of blouse to wrong side of elastic.

That's all it took. I look forward to playing around with these thick elastic bands some more. They're just so easy! And I have some more complicated guillotine dress ideas too. Now that I have my very own little sewing area, complicated sounds fun.