Reversible Dress Tutorial

This is the very first time I'm making a tutorial.  I am not a professional at this.  My sisters and I make clothes for ourselves and as gifts to friends.  And because I also have the desire to let people know that looking good doesn't have to break the bank.  

I don't know how to shoot one for youtube so I decided to just use drawings and text which I hope it's helpful.

This is tutorial is for this reversible dress that I posted on facebook. 

 Unfortunately, the asymmetry of the dress confused me so much even when I was making it so I've decided to make a tutorial for the very first reversible dress that I made which looked something like this.(I'll explain later why I didn't have a photo of the dress)

It's still reversible - on one side it's dark gold and on the other side, it's black.  Some of the gold faded though after washing.  Anyway, on to the tutorial.

Step 1

I took a dress which has the fit that I wanted for this dress and used it as a pattern.  I traced it on to pattern paper.  I made two – one for front and back and edited both patterns to the design that I wanted.

 Step 2

I then traced both front and back patterns to 2 different fabrics.  Now, since this design involves no zippers, it might be best to use stretch fabric.  If it's not like a poly stretch fabric, just make sure it stretches sideways.  Cut the fabric leaving an allowance - whichever measurement works for you.  I don't have a serger and believe me when I say that our sewing machine is vintage.  So just to be sure I left a half-inch allowance.

Step 3

After I cut my fabric, I started sewing them together.

The broken red lines signify where I sewed the same colored fabrics together.

Step 4

After that, I flipped 1 of the sewn fabric inside out(say the purple one).  And I slipped it inside the green fabric.  Make sure the front matches front and back matches back.  Right now, you have right sides of the fabric facing each other. 

The blue broken lines mark where I stitch 2 different colored fabrics together - front to the other front and back to the other back.  Notice that I haven't sewn yet the shoulder portion.  That was because I found it easier to flip both fabrics to their right sides when I have that portion not yet sewn together. 

Step 5

So now, I flipped both fabrics so I've got the right sides of the fabrics facing me.  This also means all stitching is hidden.  I now just have to tackle the shoulders and hem the edges.  So for the shoulders... I sewed the shoulder parts of the purple fabric together first. 

This next part is a little difficult to explain.  But basically what I did was go in between the purple and green fabric, and pulled the shoulder portions out - enough so I can sew the shoulders of the green fabric together.  After that, I pulled the shoulders back to where they should be.  Now I have an almost complete dress.

Step 6

So now, I just have to hem the edges at the bottom making sure they had the same length.

I attached buttons and a loop at the back portion.  And since I wasn't that blessed in the chest department, I decided to cinch the V of the neckline.

A few things I took note of when I made this dress again:

1.  Make sure the front and back have a sizable opening.  This is the only way you can get in the dress if you didn't incorporate a zipper into the construction.

2.  Not to get too excited and sew the shoulders together in step 3.

3.  I sewed through all the sides twice to make the stitches stronger since I don’t have a serger.

So here's the explanation why I don't have a picture of the very first reversible dress I made.  Like I said, I used metallic stretch fabric and some of the gold came off after washing. (If anyone has any idea how to wash metallic stretch fabric, please leave a comment.)  As I was going to wear this dress to a wedding that weekend and I didn't have time to make a new dress, I decided to remedy the damage by covering the gold area with stretch lace.  This is how the dress looks like now.  It's no longer reversible but it served me well for the wedding and got quite a few compliments.

And that's it.  This is the first tutorial I have ever made in my life, please leave a comment below on how I can improve.

Thanks!