Sewing Patriotic dress and bloomers for July 4th

I usually don't sew occasion specific clothing simply because it feels like such a waste of time and resources to sew something for single use. However, I made an exception this time with this patriotic dress and bloomers set. One reason was that I always wanted to make something in that color combination. But I still used the colors such that it doesn't scream July 4th and can be used as a nautical dress for the rest of the summer.

As I did earlier with this frooty appliqued skirt, I leaned on one of my older tutorials for this dress and tried to put a fresh spin on it. The dress is a fresh take on my tutorial for 20 mins dress here. So I won't go into much construction details for the dress. Instead I'll just show the pictures of the dress construction and move on to the embellishing.


Supplies:


1 Tshirt - L or XL size
Grosgrain ribbon - 10 inches
Trim for embllishments at hem - 2 yd ( I used the heavy upholstery kind because thats what I had on hand)
Elastic - 1/4 inch wide - 1.5 yd
Ric Rac - 3/4 yd

Construction:

For the 20 min Tshirt Dress I will just post the pictures, you can jump to this post for detailed instructions:

For the flutter sleeves ( made from the sleeves of Tshirt):

Embellishments:

Mark two parallel lines 1.5 inch and 3 inch above the hemline. Sew on the trim along these lines.

Make a bow from grosgrain ribbon and sew it at the front center, below the elastic. Don't sew it over the elastic or you won't be able to adjust the gathers.

Sew Ric-rac along the raw edges of sleeves by sewing it on the outer side first. Even though this seam doesn't show in the outside take time to change the thread to the Ric-rac color. I'll tell you why in the next step.

Now fold inside and sew over the folded part to have a nice scalloped ric-rac along the sleeves. Take care to use different threads in this step ( Navy blue in the spindle and red in the bobbin) I found that the edges often turn outwards as the child moves and you wouldn't want the stitches showing on the inside.

Voila! Patriotic dress is ready!
Tutorial for bloomers is coming up tomorrow

PS: The bloomers tutorial and pattern is here.