The Haley Dress Sew-Along part 4: Finishing Touches

Thanks for joining me on the last day of The Haley Dress sew-along! Today's the day we finish your dress! Today is going to be easy street compared to all you've done over the past 3 days.

For the previous days' tutorials, go here: DAY 1, DAY 2, DAY 3.

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Finishing Touches

Step 1: Sew your front piece to your back piece.

Pretty self-explanatory :) Line up your edges and lay your assembled front piece and back piece on top of each other with the right sides together. Pin your edges from the bottom of the armhole to the bottom of the dress.

Ew, very yellow picture - sorry for the bad lighting..

Using a 1/4 inch seam allowance, set your machine to zig-zag stitch and sew down the side of your dress from the bottom of the armhole to the bottom of your dress, backstitching at the beginning and end to secure. Repeat on the other side.

Turn your dress right side out.

You 2 pieces are now joined together

Step 2: Attach your straps.

Take one of your finished (or purchased) straps you made yesterday and line up the seam of your strap with the armpit seam on your dress. Pin your strap around your dress, enclosing the raw edges of your armhole, bias tape on the back piece, and yoke inside your strap.

Sewing close to the edge of your strap, sew a zig-zag stitch the entire way around the strap starting at the bottom of your armhole. Make sure to catch the other side of your strap as you sew. Repeat with the other arm. The folds on your strap should be closed now and the raw edges of your dress enclosed within the tape.

Step 3: Attach your button.

Use a needle and thread to hand sew your button to the back of your dress directly across from where you sewed your elastic.

If you don't want to add the flower, your dress is done!

But you know you want the flower...

Step 4: Make your flower.

Trace 4 large circles from your main fabric, 1 large circle from your accent fabric, and 4 slightly smaller ones from your accent fabric. I used a couple of bottles of fabric paint to trace around for this. Cut out. I would recommend applying Fray Check to the perimeter of each of your circles so the ends don't fray.

The one large circle you cut from your accent fabric will be your base that you attach the other circles to (mine is the one large gold one), set that one aside.

Take the circles you just cut from your main fabric, fold them each in half, wrong sides together...

...then fold in half again...

...and pin each of your little triangles on top of your base circle (which should be right side up). Stitch the points of the triangles down in a kind of a "square" formation, removing the pins as you go. (See picture below where I've demonstrated how you should stitch in white.)

Fold the rest of your circles like you did with the ones above. Place them on top of your stitched circles in the same fashion and sew down the same way.

Now, hand-sew a small button on top to hide your stitches, and hand sew to your dress!

And you're done!!!

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Thank you all so much for your wonderful feedback during this series! Your comments and questions have made all the hard work I put into this tutorial worth it.

I would LOVE to see your finished dresses and feature them on my blog! Send your pictures of this project (or any others you've made with my tutorials) to the email below.


Please email me at myownroad(at)yahoo.com with any questions you may have.