Let's make a wrap dress together

Summary

Come make a wrap dress with me — no pattern, just tracing one I already love and tweaking the bits I'd change. I walk through cutting the whole (slightly chaotic) shape from one big piece of fabric, finishing the edges, adding the straps, and options for an elastic-cinched waist and a finished neckline.

• Start with one big piece of fabric (at least 44" wide, 60–70" long) folded twice, cute sides kissing
• Mark the neck hole and cut the funky shape: neck, sleeves, waist wrap, and length (cut at a slight angle)
• Finish every edge, then make and attach FOUR straps (not two — she'll remind you!)
• Optional: an elastic-cinched waist and a little facing to finish the neckline; the original even had a back zipper

Transcript

Hi. Hello. Are you ready to learn to make that dress over there? And I'm probably also putting it up right here as an overlay. Well, too [ __ ] bad. Okay, so I traced this one and I'm mentally calculating a few places that I wish it were made differently and we're going to make it together. The first thing you're going to need is a nice big piece of fabric. You're going to want it to be at least 44 in wide total, 60-70 in long if you want to make it out of one piece. But your finished garment is going to be like 44 in one way and maybe 36 in the other. Okay, I am going to fold it over once. Cute sides kissing. And then over once again. If you don't have a long piece of fabric, you might need like four pieces for this. On the folded edge with the fold at the top, I'm going to draw a line over about 3 in and a line down over about 2 in. And that will become my neck hole. From here to here, including this, should be 22 in.

So we'll come on over to here. If this is 15 and it's at 11, then that's 26. So we'll come down 11 in. We'll come over 11 in. We'll go down 11 in. And then we're going to come over about 4 in. And then we're going to go diagonal down to the full length of the fabric. And I know you're like, "What the [ __ ] is happening?" And then you're going to do 2 in on this whole side. Two strips of two inches. So we're going to cut this neck. We're going to cut the edge of this sleeve. This is the bottom of the sleeve. This is what comes down by your waist. This is the extra little piece that wraps around you. And then this is the length. Cut at a slight angle. Now, when you open it up, you kind of see the vibe. And on that dress over there, this part is elastic and so it cinches it in. And then you will also need two long strips. On the one that I got, the strips are 22 inches long by 1 inch wide. So to do that, you would cut a little over two inches, fold it in half, cute sides kissing the whole way down, flip it right side out, and then you got your straps.

So once you have all of this cut out, you're going to want to finish all of the edges individually. You're just going to fold and zoop all the way around this entire crazy shape. You're going to take your little strappies. They have four, not two. Okay, I lied to you. You're going to need four of these. You're going to finish each individual strap and then you're going to attach it to this guy. Okay, we have zooped. Now you have this whole big thing that you could be done with now. You could theoretically go ahead and flip it the right way. There's your little dress. And then you can tie these straps around the back. Having a little Marilyn Monroe moment. And tie these straps around the front. And if you pull real hard, you'll cinch your waist. But if you want the elastic waist like that, that's easy too. That one was only using two little strips of elastic. And it cinches it in the very middle piece.

You're going to cut like a half inch piece of elastic, as long as this loop right here in between the waistband, just on the body part, not on this flappy part. And it needs to be able to stretch to that long. You don't want it to be that long at rest. And then you can do just a little straight stitch right through it. Pull both ends of the elastic and run it under your machine with a nice wide straight stitch, and it will then snap back into place. You'll do one of those on this side and one on this side and then it'll scrunch it in. And that's it. That's all you have to do. It's not hard. Also, these were the measurements on the garment: folded in half, it was 11 in wide at the body, making it 22 in total for the front, 22 total inches for the back. The sleeve length is 11 in. So, if you want them longer, make them longer. If you need the body wider, make it wider. The length on this bad boy was only 29 total inches. That doesn't work for me. So, when I make it, I'm going to make it 36 inches, so it'll hit mid thigh. The straps were 22 inches. That was enough length, but I could have used longer to have more elaborate ties. Do with this what you will. Good luck. Godspeed. Don't forget it's four straps, not two straps. I'm dumb and I love you. You look beautiful.

Oh, I didn't tell you how to finish the neck on this one. So, if you want to do this one the way that one was done, what you're going to need to do — and I show this in a tutorial on YouTube — you'll take it, fold it in half, and you'll just trace the outline of the neck, and you'll come over about two inches like this. If it's cut the same on both sides, then you only have to do this part once. If you cut it differently, then you have to do it for each side. You just cut this part out and make sure that you have finished all the edges on it also. So you do like one of these little facings. You attach it to the front side like this. Cute sides kissing. And you go right around the edge. Then you're going to take it and flip it, and it'll magically look like this on the inside after you've zooped it into place. You may want to take both sides of that facing and attach it so it doesn't flip flop around. You might also want to come back to this side and, with it fully attached, do a top stitch around the edge. It's the easiest way to make your little collars look a little bit nicer. And also, on that one, it has a zipper up the back. They made it out of way more than just one big piece — they used like four pieces. The zipper in the back, all you got to do is cut a little slit, throw your little zip in there. Shazam. Of course, you'll have to finish it a little better than that. You'll fold these sides back so there's no raw edges. And then you'll stick a zipper right in there. I hope this helps. Thanks. Thanks for wasting your time with me. Waste more time by liking and subscribing and watching another video. Thanks.