I have actually been on the hunt for a striped dress for a while, so when I was in Sew-Low Fabrics the other day (they were having a 30% off clearance sale because they're closing and I couldn't help myself) I decided it was the perfect opportunity for me to finally get that striped dress I had been searching for.

I purchased a yard of the fabric, and I only have a few scraps left over, which I might use to make my roommate a dinosaur stuffed toy.

To make the dress:

I used a t-shirt that I had lying around that was slightly loose on me to make the pattern for the bodice. I had made darts into this pattern piece before, but because I wanted this to look super casual and slouchy, I left it un-darted, which just simplified the sewing process and minimize the stress for matching up the stripes!

After I sewed up the top shoulder pieces, I laid the bodice out so that I could use the arm hole to make the sleeves. This is the first time I've ever made sleeves, and I'd say it was pretty successful! I used a different part of the fabric so the stripes didn't match up, and I can't decide if I like it this way better or if I should have made a bigger effort to match up the stripes and make it look like one almost-seamless piece of fabric. 

For the skirt, I just cut out a big rectangle and gathered it slightly, then sewed it to the end of the bodice. I tried very hard to match up the side seams so that all the stripes match up - this is a running trend, obviously. I'm a little bit OCD about this, if you can't tell.

And it was done! There's only 7 seams to this dress, so it was a super-easy patternless dress.

Here's the full body shot of the dress and me wearing it! I decided to wear it with a belt because the dress overall is pretty loose on me, and I like it when my clothes have a little bit more shape. I will probably at some point wear it without the belt as well (most likely when I have to roll out of bed for an early class in the coming semester!).