So I have decided I want to try to make a dress because why not right? I keep looking for things to grab my interest so I can start on the “Monica’s Closet” life transformation through fashion project; but everything I like is way out of my budget. I came across a Saint Laurent Tiered Babydoll Dress today and really liked it but I don’t have the $4,217 needed to obtain it.

I am still working on discovering what works for me and what doesn’t. I really should already know. After all I’m well past the age to be still discovering myself; but life can throw you for a loop sometimes and in the process it can change you physically from what you were before it took you on a horrifying ride through the eye of a tornado. So here I am trying to figure out how to dress so that I can look and feel my best; but every time I come across something in a style of clothing that I think would suit me it costs way too much money. Since I am already in the habit of cutting up bedsheets and making dresses out of them I figured maybe I should try to make clothes similar to the styles I like but can’t afford. By the way making dresses out of bedsheets is something I discovered today I am not the only person who does.

WIKI HOW – How to Make a Dress from a Fitted Bedsheet

And Bedsheet Maxi Dress

Admittedly my bedsheet dresses don’t look quite so professional as all I do is just cut a hole for the neck and call it a caftan style dress. If I’m feeling ambitious I might run a drawstring through the neck so I can also use it as a skirt. I like to be nice and loose and comfortable, and I also like tiered dresses, which is why I think I like the Saint Laurent dress. It’s tiered and it looks like it’s nice and loose and comfortable; but I couldn’t find anything similar to it in my affordable price range so I thought about fashioning one using skater skirts. And I came up with this design below.

I found a leopard print skater skirt on Amazon and used it to fashion the above dress in photoshop. I was seriously going to buy 5 of the leopard print skater skirts and try to turn them into this dress but I figured it would be cheaper to just try to make a similar dress from scratch.

The Skirt used to fashion the photoshop mock up of the above leopard print tiered dress

The crepe de chine shimmer salmon fabric

This is a picture of the swatch of the fabric I purchased from fabrics.com. I ordered 8 yards. I figure that should be enough. And I also ordered some woven braid trim in case I should want to trim the collar edge. I placed the order today so I still have to wait for the items to arrive before I can get started on my tiered dress attempt. Considering I don’t really sew per se this should be interesting. I don’t have a sewing machine and don’t know how to use one anyway; but I’ve made hand-sewn clothing for myself before. I have no idea how I will make a tiered dress from scratch; but we shall see what happens.

Another possible style for my tiered dress made in photoshop using a picture of a coral skater skirt.

The skirt used for the dress mock-up