Drape Dress / Pleated Tulip Dress Project

As I had multiple weddings this year, I thought it would be a fun challenge to make my own dresses and save some money while doing it. For the first wedding of the season, I saw this style of dress on Pinterest and knew that it was a style I wanted to wear for a "black tie optional" event. I don't have any good solo shots of me in the dress, so I hope these photos will suffice in giving you an idea of how the dress turned out.

There are some things I wish I could fix with this dress. In the picture above, I pinned it how I would have wanted it to look, but in reality, the bottom of the dress had too much fabric and the fabric was not lightweight so it didn't wrap around my body like how I wanted it to look.

At the last minute, I also realized that when I sat down, the dress opened up too much at the front! And just my luck, I didn't sew in a lining layer because I thought one layer of a heavy weight fabric would be enough. The night before the wedding, I sewed in a rectangular piece of fabric in the front to act as an underskirt.

Overall, this dress cost me just under $20 - $14 for the fabric and $5 for the zipper.

Tutorials:
Skirt Pattern
Any guide to draft a bodice: e.g. Link