I used a tight stretchy sleeveless dress to trace a pattern... it's important that if you trace another piece of clothing for a pattern, that the fabric you are about to sew with has the same properties of stretch or no stretch. I used the heavy book trick (thanks to reader Liberty for the idea!) to hold the paper real flat.
Lay your pattern on the fabric. I used pins to make sure it was tight. The fabric was doubled, with the fold at the top shoulder... that way I could cut the front and back out at the same time and the shoulders would already be connected without having to sew them.
SEW. I sewed seams up the left and right side, leaving holes for the arms, where the sleeves were to go. I also hemmed the edges in the back, front and bottom. I was too lazy to take the pins off the pattern paper, and then put them back on again, so i sewed right outside the paper line for the seam, then removed the pattern.
Step 4::::
SLEEVES::::
Why are sleeves so mysterious?? I don't think I ever do them the same twice, every time I am just shooting chance to the sky hoping a sleeve will work.
This time i took the arm hole existing and drew a sleeve that would accurately connect to it. It was a free hand experiment, with no measurements.
I cut out the arm pattern, then doubled the fabric twice to cut all the arm pieces out at once.
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I took the scrap fabric pieces from cutting out the body pattern for the ruffle on the butt. I centered the first one and then just crinkled them up and sewed a seam across the top of each crunched, scrunched layer...
Tight and comfy and ruffley- I am going to wear this all day. :)