McIntosh Knockoff Dress

Say hello to my latest summer dress . . . a cute little knockoff of Spool No. 72's McIntosh dress. Here's the original (which would have cost $54 if it weren't sold out):

And here's my version, which rang up at a whopping $4 (really broke the bank with this one):

 Not bad, eh? The top came from a long-sleeved tee I already had (so I'm not counting it toward the cost) and I got the pink cotton on sale at JoAnn for I think $2-3. Toss in some thread and we'll call it an even $4. Search as I might, I couldn't find the sort of coraly-orangey color in the original dress, so I settled for a bright pink.

I wanted my version of this dress to have short sleeves (check!), pockets (check!), and a gathered waist only across the front and back, not the sides--personally, I think those side gathers aren't doing anybody any favors--and I like the slimmer silhouette that this version produces.

This green number was my practice run--and you know, I actually think I like it better than the final draft. The pink skirt above was an A-line shape, but the green one I just cut straight.

 (For this one, I used an old tee that was a hand-me-down from my sister (or is it a hand-me-up, since she's younger?). When she saw these pictures, her response was, "Dude, that's my shirt." She'd better not be expecting to get it back now.)


Want to make one? It was super-duper (luper-buper) easy, and you'll be done in an hour or so!

Click read more below for the tutorial . . . 

Here's what you'll need:

- a tee or tank that fits you well 

- 1.5 to 2 yards of cotton fabric

- a tape measure (optional)

- basic sewing supplies . . . scissors, thread, etc.

First things first--make sure to wash your shirt and fabric before you get started--you don't want it to shrink after you've already sewn it up!

Put the shirt on and mark with a pin where you'd like the skirt to start--I marked right at the waist. Take it off and, making sure your shirt is smooth and flat, cut off the lower part 1/2 inch below your pin.

Using your tape measure, measure your waist right where you want the skirt and shirt to meet (the same spot you pinned in the previous step). If you don't have a tape measure, you could just wrap the fabric around you and mark where it meets. Multiply your measurement by 1.5, then divide that by 2--the number you end up with is how wide you need to cut your cotton fabric for the front and back pieces of the skirt. My waist measurement was 30", so 30 x 1.5 = 45, divided by 2 = 22.5 (secret: I used a calculator for that. Math is so not my forte.), so my front and back skirt pieces each needed to be 22.5" at the waist. If you want your skirt to be poofier, you can just double your waist measurement and go from there. Also measure from your waist to where you want the skirt to end, and add an inch or so (for me, this ended up being about 24").

Here's where you need to decide which skirt you prefer--the a-line (pink skirt above) or straight (green skirt above). My thoughts: although the a-line is roomier and a tad easier to move around in, I think the straight skirt is more flattering, plus the green skirt was about 300% easier to make--just chop a straight line, and the hem is a no-brainer. The a-line requires a little more fancy cutting and the hemming was obnoxious with a capital O. And the rest of the letters capitalized, too. I'll just go ahead and yell it: IT WAS OBNOXIOUS. Personally, I recommend the straight skirt and if I make more of these (yes please!) I'll do the straight skirt every time, but do whichever you like best. The a-line is the one pictured in the steps.

If you want the straight skirt, cut 2 fabric pieces to your measurements from the last step--they'll just be big rectangles (tip: cut from selvage to selvage--this saves you from having to finish an extra edge later. Yessss!).

If you want an a-line skirt, you'll need to start your cut for the panels at the number you ended up with after your little math equation above, but then angle out so you end up with an "A" shape--I folded my fabric in half, made a little cut at the measurement I needed my pieces to be (22.5), then laid an a-line skirt on top of my fabric, lining up the waistline with the fabric edge, scooted it over to where I had snipped, and cut along the shape of the skirt, as shown below, and left about 2 inches below the skirt length (if you're doing an a-line, you can adjust the bottom hem shape later):

If you want pockets (do it! it's great! dresses deserve pockets, too!), layer up 4 pieces of fabric and cut in a big mitten-ish shape around your hand, going all slanty-wise:

Enough cutting! Let's get sewing! Take two pocket pieces and pin them onto the sides of each skirt piece (with the right sides together, if you're using a fabric that has a right or wrong side), starting about 4" down from the waist, pointing in toward the skirt, and make sure that the oval shape is slanting downward (that's important! I did it wrong the first time! It was Obnoxious!).

Sew the pockets to the skirt edges using a 1/4" seam allowance, then press the pockets out and away from the skirt pieces.

Lay your skirt panels on top of each other, right sides together, and pin along the sides, pinning around the pocket pieces as well. Sew the panels together with a 1/2" seam allowance, going around the pocket pieces as shown in the picture below . . . you'll be sewing along the dashed line. Don't sew straight down over the pockets--you'll sew it shut, and who wants a dumb little faux pocket? Those are the worst!

Finish the side seams with a serger (if you have one . . . I don't) or a zig-zag stitch over the raw edges to make sure they don't fray when you wear/wash your cute new outfit.

Now let's gather along the front and back, shall we? With a pin, mark where you want your gathers to start and stop on both sides of the skirt (you could try your skirt on and mark it, but I just eyeballed it and pinned about 4 inches in from the side seams).

Ummm, ignore my little whoopsy in the middle of my skirt. Remember how a few steps ago, I had you make a little snip where you wanted to start your a-line skirt? I got a little overexcited and totally cut the wrong spot. I felt smart. I had to stitch it back together, and luckily the sash completely covers my little error, but there it is in the pictures for you all to laugh at (although I'd prefer if you kept the laughter to a minimum thankyouverymuch).

Increase your stitch length on your machine as high as you can and sew a straight stitch 1/4" from the edge between your pins--don't backstitch at the beginning and end of your sewing! If you do, you'll feel like a real dummy since you won't be able to gather it in a few minutes, and you and your seam ripper will have to spend some quality time together tearing it out.

Now stuff the shirt inside of the skirt with the skirt inside out and the shirt right side out (so the right sides of the pieces are facing each other) and pin the side seam of the shirt to the side seam of the skirt. 

Carefully carefully, making sure you are not stretching the knit tee, pin the skirt and shirt edges together until you get to your stitching line. Repeat for the other side.

Now gather the fabric until it is the same length as the tee below it (to gather the fabric, gently pull on one of the threads of your gather stitch and slide the fabric along it--it'll ruffle up). Make sure to distribute the ruffly gather evenly along the space, and pin it to the tee. Repeat for the other side.

It'll look kinda sloppy--that's okay. Using a 1/2" seam allowance and starting on a side seam, sew where you've pinned the tee and skirt together, backstitching at the start and end, and being careful when you go over the ruffles--keep it nice and even and straight. 

When you're done with this step and flip your dress right side out to see what you've done, don't panic. It'll look crappy and reminiscent of the awful knit shirt dresses we all wore back in the 90s, remember those? I wish I didn't . . . anyway, that's okay, it will get better, I promise. On my green trial dress, I spent the whole time I was sewing thinking to myself, "Rachel, you idiot, what a waste of fabric!" and I kept hoping I'd be able to salvage my green cotton from this disaster of a dress, and then when it was done, I was shocked by how cute it was. Moral of the story: don't worry, you'll be cuter than this step will make you think.

Let's hem this puppy up. Put the dress on (and try not to have a meltdown when the mirror reveals a terrible  90s outfit) and mark with a pin where you'd like the dress to end. If you did a straight skirt, the hemming is super easy: just fold the hem up about 1/2", iron it, then fold it up again however much you need to to reach your pin mark, iron, pin all the way around, and sew. If you did an a-line skirt, you have my sympathy. This will be terrible and you will hate yourself. 

Get that a-line skirt you used earlier to get the shape from, lay it on top of your dress at the waist, and cut about 2 inches below it, mimicking the shape of the a-line skirt.

Maybe there's a simpler way to hem a curved edge, but I don't know what it is, so my hemming was a mess of ironing and dozens of pins and maybe some tears, and it still didn't come out that well (please don't blow up the pictures to check). It's not perfect, but it's presentable (luckily, the real mess is hiding on the inside). Just do your best to keep the hem even and flat and for goodness' sake, make a straight skirt next time. You can't say I didn't warn you about this; remember when I shouted about how obnoxious it was?

On to the sash! (This is where I got tired of taking photos for each step--sorry!) Using whatever is left of your fabric, cut as long a piece as you can, at double the width you want your sash to be plus 1" (mine was 9" wide and quite long). Depending on how much fabric you started with, you might not have a long enough piece to give you the sash length you want--that's okay, just cut more than one rectangle and sew the short ends together to join them.

Fold the piece in half lengthwise (right sides together, if that matters for your fabric) and sew across one short end and up the long end with a 1/2" seam allowance. Turn the piece right side out, iron flat, fold the raw ends under on the unsewn short end, and topstitch around the whole thing.

Now put on your 90s dress, tie your sash in a cute bow, and watch it transform into a lust-worthy Spool 72 knockoff! Aren't you glad you saved $50?!

Linking this project up here!