In this tutorial I will explain how I took a button down shirt a pattern and turned it into a girls winter night gown like this.
First lets grab our materials. You need a ruler, a tried and true pattern, one you know fits and works well for you, pens,tracing paper and fabric.
We are going to start with the front, the intended fold line for the facings will be the fold line for the front. Trace the neck, shoulder and arm hole seam lines, (my pattern doesnt include seam allowence but I will add that later)
Your yoke seam will be drawn a 1/2 inch from the under arm.
Following the neck line up until about an inch from the fold edge, cuve it for a neater, more girly finish.
My pattern had a back yoke separate from the body so I combined the two so the back was one piece. First I traced the yoke as it was.
Now in order to add the bottom piece I had to readjust the piece. I extended the line that I drew for my back fold line and made it longer.
I lined the arm hole seams up and continued tracing ,
making the back yoke as I did the front and extending the underarm seam by 1/2 inch.
The new back yoke piece.
Lets make a facing piece for our neck line. First off tape the sholder pieces you just traced at the sholder. Because my pattern didnt include seam allowence I just matched up the lines and taped them.
If your pattern doesnt have seam allowence included in it, you will need to draw your seam allowence in at the neck line to include the entire front yoke length. * Please note my picture doesnt show the seam allowence including the front yoke length.
Now we need to finish the facing. I made mine 1 1/2 inches. So I measured the neck line I just drew and marked all along it for 1 1/2 inches wide.
Connect the dots.
Time to cut our pieces.
When cutting your front facing piece you can choose to cut it on the fold or not If you dont cut it on the fold you will need to add seam allowence to that part only of the front facing.
(like my pattern weight LOL)
The length and width of your night gown body are best determined on the size you are making. Being that I am making this for my 5 year old the 44 inches wide my flannel is will be perfectly fine for my width, I measured the length to be 24 inches. When measureing measure from the underarm.
If your selvage edge is printed on, and if you choose cut it off.
Before we sew, lets add some interfacing to the front yoke facing.
Time to sew. First sew your front shoulder seams to the back shoulder seams.
see
If you did not cut your facing on the fold you will need to sew the back seam.
Line up the facing, right sides together and sew it to the front yoke.
Finish the edge not sewn to the neck line.
Flip the facing to the inside, and press.
Top stitch the edge.
Sew another line of stitching approximately an inch from the first line. This is to catch the edges of the facing,
Sew the sleeves into the arm holes.
Finish the sleeve edge.
Sew the underarm seam , making sure to include the small 1/2 inch side seam.
Pending on the size you made your night gown, sew the back seam or side seams.
Run a gathering stitch along the top of the night gown,
Match up the front yoke pieces, so the right over laps the left.
Turn the yoke inside out, and place it inside the body, right sides together.
If you choose, top stitch the yoke/body seam . Hem the sleeves and body. Mark and add snaps to the front yoke to keep it closed.
Voila!
Make a few, have fun and enjoy the night gowns you have made,
Have a nice day ,
Kristen :)
