Cowl Neck Tee Shirt Dress Tutorial - No Pattern Needed

Please help me welcome Stephanie of Made in Australia by Stephanie. She is a stay-at- home mum to two beautiful young children. Her passions are sewing, knitting, refashioning clothes, and trying to be as 'green' as modern life will allow. She has some cute and fun projects on her blog. I am so happy that she agreed to stop by and show us how to make this beautiful cowl neck Tee Shirt Dress. It's so easy and she looks so awesome in it. You could make this from start to finish in under an hour. 

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Hi. My name is Stephanie, and I am so pleased to be here with you all today. Trudy is one of my favourite bloggers, and I am so super happy that she chose me.

I have been sewing for about a year (but shhh! Don't tell anyone as I sell some of the stuff I sew). I mainly sew for little people, but occasionally I sew for myself.

I choked when I realised I had to come up with something for Trudy... I honestly didn't think she would pick me. I thought about it long and hard and decided that I would make something that I wanted, in the hope that it might be interesting to someone else. So I chose to make a cowl neck tee shirt dress.

I would like to preface the following information with this.. I have NO training, I have learned how to sew through trial and error...so please excuse any technical errors :D

(Don't forget to pop the jersey needle in your machine.)

I love this fabric. 

I know it's not everyone's taste but it's a lovely soft jersey knit and I like the colour and pattern.

I used a dress that fits me well as a template, but you could use a tee shirt and trace the skirt pattern in an A line from the bottom of the tee.

Lay the dress/tee shirt over the fabric and cut around it, leaving a bit extra at the top for the next stage and about 1.5 cm seam allowance.

Ok. So this is not super technical, but it was the way that I worked out how much cowl I wanted. I simply used a tape measure to drape from shoulder to shoulder,

gathered fabric evenly in the middle using the measurements from the last step to guide me,

laid the dress back down and cut out the shoulders and sleeves. This is the front of the dress. The back is done by tracing around the dress with a 1.5 cm seam allowance.

Both pieces cut out. I matched up the shoulders and sewed them, right sides together. Then sewed down the sides of the dress.

For a super quick finish you could leave it like this as knit fabrics don't unravel. I serged/overlocked the neckline, armholes and hem, then hemmed everything. I wish I had just left it serged as I prefered that "unfinished" look.

Thank you so much for having me over. It's been fun!

Linking With Sew & Tell Saturday at Sew Country Chick