A vintage style bedsheet dress!

I love sewing with vintage bedsheets but it seems it’s getting harder to find pretty ones (I guess lots of people have the same idea)! So when a friend dropped two bags full of vintage sheets onto my front porch a month ago I was very excited- some of them were full sets! Which gives you lots of fabric to work with.

I get very indecisive when it comes to planning my projects, so I just washed the sheets and piled them up while my brain whirred with ideas. I could not nail anything down until one day this photo popped up on my Instagram feed from vintage dress seller Sweetbeefinds:

I have two vintage sheet sets with stripes so I just needed to decide which to go with.

I love both of these patterns but prefer the lower neckline of simplicity 3471. However, it’s one size larger than I usually wear so I knew I would have to make changes. Usually I make a muslin, but I did not feel like fussing with it because all I’ve been sewing is masks lately and I was ready for a new dress!

*3471 with this pretty cornflower colored bedsheet it is!*

: The vintage instructions tell you to sew the facing to the bodice completely, and then go back and put the strap on top of everything which makes it have a hanging strap on the inside of your dress. I decided to do it more like Butterick 6453 and insert the strap before I sewed the facing. Which makes it a bit more difficult, but I used the instructions from Butterick 6453 to help me remember how to do it.

*A pattern I’ve used mu*ltiple times and while it’s very similar, I did not want a princess bodice to break up the stripes in the fabric.

*Inserting the straps before sewing it all together*. *You have to leave the back straps open so you can go back and try on, and adjust the straps for fit.*

:Now, I did not use the skirt from the vintage pattern. That skirt is just a plain large rectangle that is gathered at the waist. Instead, because I had plenty of fabric to work with, I opted for the skirt from the Liz pattern from charm patterns. It is a gathered quarter circle skirt. And there’s not as much gathering, so you don’t have as much bulk at the waist but you have lots of fullness in the skirt.

*And of course the most important- POCKETS!!*

Lucky for me the new issue of Threads magazine had a very lengthy article on gathering, and while it’s always a pain, having those tips made is easier and gave me pretty and even gathers.