Making a Dress for Dress-a-Girl - Stage 2

The straps are on...

... they are made from bias cut strips, each 36 inches long.  I could have used broad bias binding, but I hadn't got any, so I had to cut my own strips.  Each strip is 2 inches wide and folded in half, a double thickness binding.  I could have cut them a bit broader, to measure say an inch and a half when folded, but any narrower than an inch would have been too fiddly.

The middle point of the strip needs to be lined up with the side seam,  and I attached it to the inside of the dress on the underarm edge, with about a quarter of an inch seam allowance.

The side seam was pressed towards the back.

Then it was time to rethread the machine with thread to match the binding, and fold the binding over for the second line of stitching.  Where the binding extends beyond the seam to form the shoulder strap, it is best to iron the fold down the centre of the strap before doing the stitching.

The second line of stitching is worked on the outside of the dress...

...and continues on along the edge of the strap.

Because the strap is cut on the bias, it can have a tendency to twist if it only has one line of stitching.  For this reason I do a line of stitching along the folded edge also, and stitch across the end to prevent the raw edges fraying.

So all the dress needs now is a narrow hem around the bottom,

and it's finished.

Let's hope that somewhere in the world a little girl will be thrilled to wear it!