What could be cuter than one adorable knit heart dress? TWO adorable knit heart dresses! Alexia of the Sewing Rabbit Team is here today premiering her very first post for 2014 with the knit heart dress sewing tutorial, perfect for Valentine’s Day…or any day for that matter. The knit heart dress DIY is an easy knit dress, with a giant heart cut out, that every little girl will love!
Knit Heart Dress Tutorial
Hello Sewing Rabbit readers! This is Alexia from Lexi Made and I am SO excited to be here today to share with you my very first tutorial for 2014! I absolutely LOVE sewing for my twin daughters so for my first tutorial I will be walking through how I made these adorable heart dresses using a ready to wear dress or shirt.
Materials:
- Ready to wear dress or shirt with sleeves
- Knit fabric
- Scrap woven fabric
- Scrap fabric for heart
- Heart template
- Stretch needle
- Coordinating thread
Step 1:
- Take your ready to wear dress and pin the sleeves inside the dress so you can easily see the curve of the arm hole. This will make it easier to cut the same shape with your fabric for your new dress.
- Fold your fabric making sure the stretch goes from left to right. Cut around the ready to wear dress leaving a 3/8″ seam allowance. Do this for the front of the dress as well as the back of the dress. Make sure your head opening is big enough to fit over your child’s head.
- Repeat for the sleeves
- Take your scrap fabric for your heart (making sure it is large enough to fit your heart template and an approximately 3/8″ seam allowance) and cut along the same angle as the dress
- You should now have a dress front and back, two sleeves and heart fabric
Step 2:
- Make sure you install your stretch needle and turn your machine to your “lightning bolt” stitch or stretch stitch. On my machine it is stitch #3
- With RST pin the shoulders and sew using a 3/8″ seam allowance
- Finish your seams with your serger (optional since the edges of knit fabric does not need finishing)
- Lay the dress front and back with right side up. Fold one of the sleeves in half and find the middle. Pin the middle of the sleeve to the shoulder seam with RST. Finish pinning the sleeve to the dress and sew. It is okay to slightly stretch the fabric in order for it to fit.
- Repeat with the other sleeve
Step 3:
- With RST pin the sleeve and dress front and back and sew
- Repeat on the other side
- With RST pin and sew the fabric for the heart
- Place your heart template on your fabric making sure you place it where you would like it to be sewn onto your dress. I wanted my heart just barely extending to the back of my dress so I have my side seam to the right side of my heart.
- Cut out your heart leaving approximately 3/8″ seam allowance
Step 4:
- Place your scrap woven fabric on top of the right side of your dress. Pin the heart template to the top layer of your dress only. Make sure you place your heart exactly where your cut out fabric heart will go. I folded the side of my heart template where the seam is on the fabric heart to make sure I lined up the seam of the heart with the seam of the dress perfectly.
- With a fabric pen trace around the heart template and sew on the line using a straight stitch. You could also leave your heart template pinned to your dress and sew just to the right of the template making sure not to sew the template to the dress. Make sure you are only sewing through one layer of the dress.
- Cut out the center of your heart making sure you don’t cut the back of your dress. Clip the corners and curves.
- pull the scrap fabric through the center of the heart and pin to the wrong side of the dress. Try your best to not stretch the fabric while pinning to keep the original shape of the heart. Sew the scrap fabric down using about a 1/4″ seam allowance.
- Cut the excess fabric off as close to the stitches as possible without cutting through the dress.
- Finish the edges on your heart with your serger or using a zig zap stitch. Place the heart over the heart opening and pin to the dress making sure to pin through only one layer of the dress. Turn the dress right side out and top stitch around the heart making sure not to stretch the heart as you go so it keeps its shape.
Step 5:
- Measure your neckline
- Cut a strip of your fabric the same length as your neckline and 1.5″ to make a neck binding. Make sure the stretch of the fabric goes from left to right.
- Fold in half RST so the short ends are together and sew.
- Find the middle of the back neckline and pin the seam from your neck binding you just cut out. Finish pinning all the way across the neckline. Sew using your “lightning bolt” stitch.
- Fold the neck binding under halfway and then fold under again and pin and sew.
- Your neckline should now look like this.
Step 6:
- Fold your hem up 1/2″ and then again another 1/2″ and sew.
- Repeat this process for both sleeves
- You are FINISHED!! Enjoy your adorable new dress! Wear it just as it is in the warmer months or pair it with some leggings in the cooler months. It also makes the PERFECT Valentine’s Day dress without being too over the top.
Here are some photos of my girls wearing their new dresses. They love them!
I hope you love these dresses as much as my daughters and I do!
Thanks so much for stopping by, and until next time…Happy Sewing!
those dresses are adorable…and the girls are the cute thing ever!
Thank you so much Christina!
I love, love, love these simple knit dresses. Those hearts make everything! I’m going to have to give them a try!
Thanks Teresa! I want to see your finished dress 🙂
Love love love! Great job Alexia
Thank you Farrah!
I absolutely LOVE these!! Now that my daughter is out of infant sizes and finally not growing like a weed I’m in trouble and want to make her EVERYTHING. Thanks for giving me such a cute dress idea to add to the top of the list!!
Aren’t girls so much fun to sew for?! I just love sewing for my girls!
Oh Lexi these are sooooo cute. I love that they are Valentine’s Dayish and but are within reason so they can be worn till they are outgrown.
With Love,
Scary
Aww, thanks!! I love that they can be worn any day too. I usually don’t like to go too over the top with a theme 🙂
These are so adorable. At first I thought they were appliqué, but the cutout is such a fun twist. Really great idea!
Thank you!
I want one in my size! 🙂 Great project!
Thank you! I wouldn’t mind one in my size too 🙂
So cute! Question – where did you get your knit fabric from? I love it!
Thanks Shannon! I found both knits at the LA fabric district back in October. I wish there was a fabric district close to where I live 🙁 I think every city needs a fabric district!
Great job! But what else is new? They are darling, both the dresses and kids! So glad you’re part of this team. They must be so excited to have you.
Thanks Debbie! 🙂
I love love love your work! Simply amazing! I see in your bio you have been sewing over a year? Did u just learn how or you already had some idea of sewing
Thank you! I basically learned how to sew by reading a bunch of sewing blogs and tutorials and purchasing lots of patterns. The way pdf patterns walk you through each step with pictures really taught me a lot! Before I started sewing for my kids I did kind of play around on my moms old machine and made myself some curtains not knowing what the heck I was doing. Now that I look at them I am SO embarrassed. Haha!
Super cute, simple and sweet and just perfect! I love them!
Thank you Laura!
Amazing! You make it look so simple! I’m going to try something similar! Thanks
I would love to see what you make!
Very cute – as usual! I love this and I’m going to try to work it out before valentine’s day. I’ve got a TON of knit fabric that needs using! 🙂
I love what you created with the lace!! I think I might have to give the lace a try too!
Seriously LOVE them!!! haha!!! I guess that’s a pun! ha!
Lol!
oh man I want one too. I’m totally not kidding. I think I might have to make a prego girl version for me this weekend. So stinking cute!
Oooooo!!! That would be cute! I want to see when you are done! 🙂
Are you kidding me??!!! Those are outrageously cute! I am crazy about the aqua with the black. So simple and so awesome! Totally rockstar.
supercute! perfect k-i-s-s (keep it simple stupid) !
Just the cutest Alexia!
This post has me doing a mental inventory of knit fabric to see if I have enough for a dress!! Pretty sure I do, I can’t wait to make one!
I have been eyeballing this tutorial for a while now and finally got the guts to do it. I was afraid of knit fabric but…oh my gosh, it’s so fun! I just about finished the dress during my daughter’s nap and I’m going to add the heart later tonight. It’s solid purple and the heart is going to be light purple with little bunnies. I’m calling it her Easter dress 🙂 Thanks for the great tutorial!!
Oh, and nice last name, by the way 😉
I really want to try this. What type of knit fabric did you use? It looks a little heavier, almost like a double knit.
Forget the dress..your babies are adorable! Okay, now, about the dress-yes it is a cutie. Thanks for sharing!
Tnx for the tutorial, i’ve tried it it’s too simple. I made one yellow for my little girl. I’ll be making myself one too.
kisses from Croatia.
Beautiful tutorial!
Just a short message to let you know that you’ve been featured on our FB page: https://www.facebook.com/leoniriche/
Have a great weekend!
Silvia
Hi Jess and Lexi.So happy to find your blog on Pinterest. I so heart this project so I included it on my round-up post about sewing projects you can make for your daughters. You can see the post here, http://sewingmadesimple.net/15-sewn-valentines-gifts-your-special-little-girl-will-love/
Please let me know if I missed something about your blog and do let me know if you want to change or add anything.
Xoxo,
Amber
P.s. I’m a new fan 😉
I really love them. They look so cute and so easy to make. I ‘m sure that I will make it for my daughter. Thanks for sharing!
The dresses are just so cute and I know my daughter would just love one. I am going to give it a go, thanks
This is very very nice tutorial and I’m going to follow it.