My Draped Design: Bella Rose Gown

 Bella-Rose Gown --Draping Class Spring 2026

I've been taking a draping class at BYU-Idaho!  It's been wonderful!  I wanted to post about my epic experience making the gown above.  

I padded up a dress form to look like my body and completed many draping assignments.  These produced 'slopers', or basic flat patterns that can be manipulated into a variety of patterns.

The basis for this gown is my princess line sloper. I used the previously made bodice sloper and draped a skirt sloper using the same princess line markings already on my dress form. I took these, trued them up and then basted them to the bodice muslin pieces to create the full princess pieces. 

I turned my attention to the whorls. I decided I wanted my whorls to be 3” wide. I drew a circle using the 3” wide measurement, then overlapped the points. I knew it needed to be pointed on each end to avoid seams in the middle. This is what I came up with. When unrolled the whorl looks like this. 

I draped it onto my muslin pattern pinned to my dress form and decided I liked the length for both the princess line and also another space between the sleeve and the princess seam. 

I turned my attention to the sleeve. After seeing a short tutorial on how to make rose sleeves, I adapted the idea to these sleeves. The trick is that the rose is a cone. The top of the cone is pressed down creating the folds that resemble rose petals. The tutorial I watched put the seam of the cone at the upper sleeve. I didn’t want that seam to be there so noticeably. So with some thought and planning, I put that seam on the lower half of the sleeve. Once done, I was able to create a muslin cone and attempt to fit it to my dress form at the armscye. This is the result. 

                                                            Front and Back views

Note the pins below the whorl, creating the lower sleeve. I made the sleeve length as long as I wanted for design purposes. I didn’t want it to look like just a rose stuck on my arm—I wanted it to look like a sleeve made of a rose. 

I removed this draped sleeve, balanced the pattern, made it up into a muslin and tried it on the dress form. This sleeve looks puffier than the original draped one, and I like that look. So I finalized that pattern piece. 

I needed to work on splitting the side Princess panels to allow for a whorl to be stitched into the seam. I took both side pieces of my Princess bodice pieces and measured halfway at the shoulder. I marked this curve following the curve of the armscye and made a new pattern piece. I added seam allowances, then modified the front and back panels as well. They turned out like this: 

I pinned the pieces to the dress form to check accuracy. I was finally ready to cut out!  

I decided to start with the whorls. I knew that narrow roll hemming on the serger would be difficult if they were already cut out, so instead of cutting them out, I made a paper pattern and used white waxy tracing paper to outline the parts needing hemming. Then I serged them stitching directly on the traced lines in the circle to get them hemmed. I used wooly nylon in a serger set up for narrow rolled hem. I used the differential foot to stretch the fabric to get as good of coverage as possible. 

I started next on the rose sleeves. I cut out two rose sleeves and two original draped sleeves so that I could stitch the rose petals to something. This undersleeve would serve also as a lining. I stitched the rose sleeve cone, then followed that seam to form the cuff. I stitched the sleeve lining to the hem at the lower edges, turned it right side out and prepared to begin forming the rose.

To make sure the rose was well-shaped, I measured the depth of the sleeve lining to determine the center point. This is where I pinned the cone top as I collapsed it down onto the lining. I laid it on a pressing tool to start forming the wrinkles and pinning them to the lining. Once I was satisfied with the look, I moved to the other sleeve. Once they matched pretty well, I hand stitched the pleats of the rose to the sleeve lining. I noticed that this fashion fabric draped much more freely than the muslin, so I needed to take smaller pleats to keep the rose from looking limp when held vertically. 

Once done with the sleeves, I began to assemble the dress. I stitched the front and back shoulder seams together, then pinned the whorls to the side seams.

I offset the whorls by ¼” so that they would have a smaller seam allowance. I basted these on with ¼” seam allowances. I stitched the side front and side backs together at the shoulder seams. I pinned the whorls to this, centering the whorls at the shoulder seam. The tight part is in the front. I basted the whorls in place with a ¼” seam allowance. I stitched this together matching notches with a 5/8” seam allowance. I only stitched to the waist since I knew I needed to also insert whorls into the lower back skirt seams. I added the next whorl to the raw edges of this new seam opening. The whorl points reached to the side seams nicely. I basted them on at ¼” seam allowance, then stitched the next pieces in place. I inserted the zipper and I tried the dress on and it fit nicely. After speaking with Julann, I decided to add side ties. YAY! I took the time to insert side seam pockets and finished the skirt front. I serged the seams to finish them. So I moved on to the dress skirt section. I basted the whorls into the back leaving several inches below the hem. I took an additional whorl and manipulated it into a hanging rose and basted this into the princess seam. I did this to all three of the back seams, and serged to finish the seams. I made up the lining so I could wrap the seam at center back and insert the neckline. I completed that step, graded and wrapped the seam to stitch the neckline, which I then understitched. Abigail marked my hem so I could hem the dress. Hemmed it and stitched the underarm lining to the underarm. Hand stitched a hook and eye on. Added French tacks. Whew, done! 

Here is the final dress!  Loving it!

New fabric = new dresses

 

Some donated fabric to the sewing lab prompted some new sewing for student samples.  After using this fabric for that, I took some of the leftovers and made a doll dress.  I used one fabric for the skirt and made some false straps to make it look like a jumper over a blouse.

I remembered I had some 'feather trim' that had the same coloring and added it at the hem and across the straps and waist.  

The finished back.

There were some fat quarters donated too.  I took two of them to make this dress.  Since the dress is less gathered at the waist due to the smaller width of a fat quarter, I added the lower ruffle.  

Here's the dress back.  Very girly, no?

Smocked dresses

I have always wanted to learn how to smock.  A few years ago I used the pleating machine at BYU-Idaho to pleat some scrap fabric to practice on.  It was really fun.  I decided to pleat some fabric long enough to use as the front of a doll's dress.  I pleated 5 colors-- and completed 2 pretty quickly.  I'm still working on the other three-- I want to try different designs.  Here are the two I finished.

Here are the first few rows of smocking done on the lower edge.  I really wanted to try to have a 'V' design on the bottom row.

The rest of the design is taking shape.  I used a piece of felt basted to the back to keep the pleats in the correct size to fit the doll.

I added beads in the empty spaces.

I sewed the front into a dress!  I used piping in the seam between the top of the smocking and the upper bodice 

The second one I did was lavender colored.  This one was pleated off grain since I only had a skinny piece.  Notice how the pleats puff out.  The weft grain looks better pleated than the warp grain.  The warp grain, as you see here, is too stiff and strong to submit happily to pleating.  I'll never make this mistake again!

Meanwhile, I became a grandmother again!  My daughter saw these doll dresses and asked me to make one for her new baby's blessing dress.  Here's the dress in progress and completed. 

I made the same basic pattern of smocking on this, including the beads.  I had to modify a baby dress pattern to include the smocking in the bodice front.  This photo shows my progress as I was hand stitching of smaller beads onto the collar and sleeve ends.  I didn't use elastic on the sleeve hems-- instead I gathered the hems and stitched fabric strips over the gathers.  Unlike the doll dresses, I fully lined this dress.

Close up of the smocking and collar beading.

Close up of the sleeve and hem beading.

Here's the back view.  I can't wait to see this dress on my beautiful granddaughter.  

Aproned and Ruffled Dresses

 Is 'Aproned' a word?  I mean that I added aprons onto some of my dresses.  So they are now 'aproned.'  Okay, it may not be a word.  But it looks great!  Here are some dresses to which I added ruffles or aprons or both. 

This dress was inspired by a retro dress I found in a catalog.  The apron is simply sewn into the waistband.  I added a skinny waistband which looks like a tie in the back.  The button holds the upper apron on.  This one was chosen by one of my granddaughters as her favorite.  Big smiles!

I used this wide embroidered lace around an apron, and also in the princess lines of the bodice pattern.  I used the Molly's Party Pinafore pattern for the princess seams and then just added the lace into it.  I centered the plaid down the front, then centered the lace at the lower end of the bodice.  Then I just had to sew the components together.  

When I found these matching scraps of fabric in the sewing lab at BYU-Idaho, I knew it needed to be a combination dress with an overlay apron.  I used the same Party pinafore pattern and added a waistband, then made the apron to overlay.  I just made a wide rounded rectangle for the apron.  Because the bodice is made of the apron fabric, it looks like a full front apron over top a dress.  Very pleasing to make!

This is the Party Pinafore dress using the actual pattern with just the middle ruffle in the princess seam.  And I added the sleeves of course.  

This was really fun and I am still scheming more dresses to make with these ruffles.  

 

Crazy Eyelet Lace

 I had some really fun lace that I wanted to use.  With some ideas from 1940's dresses, I got started designing.  Some of these turned out rather 80's, but I still love them.

This one was fun.  I wanted to use the wide pink lace in the bodice.  So I put it across the top of the front and back bodices.  I sewed with it as normal and used the same color solid fabric for the neckband.  When I inserted the sleeves, I gathered a segment of it to put into the armscye first, then I inserted the sleeve.  I added a row of the gathered lace on the top of the hem.  

I added this lace to the waistband area of the lengthened bodice.  Nice look.  

This really wide lace is inserted in at the waist and again as strips in the armscye.  I had to secure the upper edge of the bodice application.  

This really interesting lace had me digging for the perfect fabric.  I sewed the dress very plainly, then hand stitched the lace over the top at the waistband and the hem seam.  I centered the design.  

Button bands down the front

Once I got going with these combinations, I started looking for matching buttons.  It was so fun to find buttons that would complement the fabric choices.  Here are some of the combinations I came up with.  

I made this dress with the blouse with an elongated skirt.  I added a waistband and straps to make it look like it's a jumper over a blouse, but it's all one dress.  I love how this turned out.  To get here, I went through the following tries first.  

I thought I'd make 3/4 sleeves with this elongated bodice dress.  Look at the cute lace I found!  I used it at the button band and sleeves.  I didn't have very much of it.  I used matching yellow buttons down the button band.  I love how it turned out.

I made a blouse like with the jumpers and added a contrasting skirt to make it look like separates.  This has long sleeves and lace at the button band, sleeves and collar.  A wider lace embellishes the hem.  I thought it looked funny without a waistband on the skirt.  

I made this one next, adding a waistband.  This one has short sleeves, but the same formula as above.  Although I didn't need to add lace at the hem to make it longer.  

Ribbons for the win

 I love using ribbon in these designs.  Sometimes I want to use a really wide ribbon.  How do you do that on a miniature dress for a doll?  I had to try some things to find ways to do it.  Did I get away with it?

This is a pretty big bow on the front of this dress, but then again, the flowers are pretty big too.  I added some lavendar lace into the sleeve hems and dress hem.  

Again, a really wide ribbon that's balanced by really big flowers.  

This little bow adds a pop of color at the center front waist.

I love this 'stitched' ribbon I put into a bow at center front.

I had fun making this basic dress with lengthened bodice and skirt.  I added those triangle buttons in the bodice to add interest and reflect the yellow in the bow.  

Here's another lengthened bodice and skirt dress with a huge purple bow at center front.  I added the matching button for extra interest.  

Here I added a collar and sleeves with a coordinating color to make it look like a jumper.  The ribbons are sewn down the center front as if they were buttons.  I was tempted to cover their centers with buttons, but decided against it.  I like this look a lot!  

These dresses make me really happy.