How to make a Pillowcase Dress

How to Make a Pillowcase Dress 

with matching headband

As featured in my Easter Outfits Post

Supplies for Pillowcase Dress

3/4 yard fabric (that is ~45 inches wide) or more if needed mine is made to fit a size 4

5/8 yard of contrasting fabric

at least 90 inches of matching 5/8 inch wide ribbon

matching thread

I made my pillowcase dress to fit my size 4 daughter, so depending on the size of your child you may want to cut your fabric a little longer and wider for a bigger size or smaller if needed.

Wash, dry and iron fabric.

Fold fabric till you have 9.5 inches across.  Cut your fabric to an 9.5 x 20 inch rectangle, repeat so you have a front and back piece.  You should now have two 19 x 20 inch pieces of fabric.  Fold your contrasting fabric in half and cut two 7x11 inch rectangles, when you unfold you have two 7 x 22 inch pieces of fabric for the bottom band of the dress.

For the armholes, with fabric folded in half down the center of the dress, on the top corner opposite the folded edge, mark two inches in from the side and 4 inches down.  Cut out armhole with a slight curve as you go as shown in picture below on both dress pieces.

Open fabric and lay flat, right side of fabric facing up.  Take you long contrasting piece of fabric and fold it in half lengthwise so it is now 3.5 x 22 inches and iron flat.  Place it on top of your dress piece, lining up the raw edges of the contrasting panel with the raw edges of your dress piece.

Pin in place along the raw edges and the sew together.

Press bottom band down and iron everything flat.  Repeat with second dress piece so  you have two identical pieces. that look like this.

Line up the two dress pieces with the right sides of the fabric facing each other and pin the sides. Make sure that the seams between the main dress piece and the bottom band line up.

Sew along the entire side of the dress starting at the armhole and sew all the way down to the bottom.

Now for the armholes, I just used the iron to press the seams in about a 1/4 inch then folded it over a second time and pressed and pinned to create a finished edge and then stitched over it.

Then folded and press the top edge of the dress by an inch and stiched along making a 5/8 inch casing for the ribbon.

Cut your ribbon in half so each piece is about 45 inches.  You can always trim it shorter if desired afterwards.  Thread the ribbon through the casing.  I attached a safety pin to one end of the ribbon to help push it through.

Tie the ends of the ribbon together on each side and your pillowcase dress should look like this

Matching Headband

Plain Headband 

you can use one you have lying around or pick one up in the jewelery and accessory section of your local craft store.

Fabric scraps from pillowcase dress

Glue Gun

Heat up your glue gun.  Take a long fabric scrap that is around 1 inch wide (it doesn't have to be perfect).  Put a bit of hot glue on the underside of the headband and then press on the scrap of fabric and begin tightly wrapping the fabric around the headband at and angle working upwards.  You can add more hot glue to the underside of the headband as you go to keep the fabric secure.  Leave a little extra fabric at the ends so you can fold and tuck it under and glue into place.

 For the Flower Rossett, I used the scrap fabric from the coordinating band along the bottom of the dress, you can follow the instructions on my Flower Accessory Tutorial Here.  Then I just hot glued it to the headband.