A-line Dress to Gathered Dress Tutorial

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Last week I promised to share with you how to make an A-line Dress into a gathered dress with a waist seam.  This a-line to gathered dress tutorial will work for any a-line dress pattern, women or girl.  I am using the Eeny Meeny Miny Moe Dress/Bodysuit pattern from Peekaboo Pattern Shop.

Decide where you want the waist/high waist seam to be.  For my daughter, I measured under the armpit down 2 inches.  I folded over the front of the dress pattern piece at this point, but you could also cut your pattern piece in 2.  A word about seam allowance.  Since I was using 1/2” seam allowance, after sewn back together, the seam ends up 1.5” down from her armpit.

Then fold your fabric in 1/2 in preparation for cutting the pattern pieces.  Place the skirt part pattern piece away from the fold as wide as the original pattern piece.  For my daughter’s dress, the original pattern piece is 5 inches wide at the top of the skirt piece, so I placed the outer edge of the pattern piece 10 inches away from the fold as you can see in the picture above.

Cut out the skirt pattern piece.

Fold the skirt part of the pattern piece up out of the way and cut out the bodice part of the dress.  Cut out the bodice part, remembering to cut 1/2” (or whatever your seam allowance is) below the bottom of the fold.

Sew gathering stitches across the top of the skirt part.  Do this by sewing 2 lines of basting stitches across the top of the skirt part 1/4” and 3/4” from the raw edge.  Pull the ends of the gathering threads and distribute the gathers until the width of the skirt part and the width of the top bodice are the same.

Pin these two pieces together, with the right sides together using a 1/2” seam allowance. Remove the basting stitches if they show.

Repeat the above steps for the back of the dress.  Continue assembling your dress as instructed in your pattern.  I used the Eeny Meeny Miny Moe Dress & Bodysuit pattern by Peekaboo Pattern Shop.

In the above photo she is wearing the aline dress.

In the above photo she is wearing the gathered dress!

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