Sweater Dress How-to

So, how'd I make the sweater dresses? It was so easy! I took some wool sweaters and felted them by washing them in hot water. It shrinks them down a lot, so for Emma's dress it was a good thing I started with a XL men's sweater. I like to work with felted sweaters because they don't unravel at all when you cut them. You will need a sweater comb, or de-fuzzer to remove any pilling. I have seen similar projects made with sweaters of other fibers, I just haven't tried it yet and don't know about unraveling.

For the sleeveless dress I just used one of Emma's dresses as a guide, matched it up to the neckline and cut the sides. If you need to make the neck opening smaller you just take in the seam at the shoulder. I cut the flower from another sweater, lined it with iron-on interfacing to keep it from stretching, and sewed it onto the front. Then, I sewed down the sides and used a black binding around the armhole to finish it off.
For Ava's dress, I literally put my sweater on her inside out, and pinned (with a safety pin or two) the sides about where I needed to take it in. I sewed a seam down each side. Then I tried it on her again before I trimmed off the extra just to be sure... I did have to unpick and sew one side over, so I'm glad I hadn't cut yet. After making sure it fit, I trimmed off the extra. I took the collar off another sweater (I have a bag of unwearable, but full of potential sweaters) and sewed it into the neck. I used pieces of the same sweater to make the flowers for her hair clip and the front of her dress.