How You Can Make a Sexy Lace DIY Tablecloth Dress

The DIY Designer
by The DIY Designer
6 Materials
$4
2 Hours
Easy

Using tablecloths for DIY projects is awesome because tablecloths come in beautifully intricate patterns, often with decorative finished edges. So, your DIY project is made so much easier!


In this tutorial, I will show you how to make a DIY tablecloth dress. Head to your thrift shop, pick up a $4 tablecloth, and let’s get started!

Tools and materials:

  • Large square tablecloth
  • Scissors
  • Measuring tape
  • Sewing needle and thread
  • Sewing machine
  • Fabric dye (optional)
Cutting the tablecloth

1. Cut your tablecloth dress

Fold your tablecloth in half twice and pin the finished edges together.

Rough tablecloth dress sketch

Work out your pattern by taking the measurements of the width of your shoulder, the length of your underarm, and width from under your arm to the inside edge across your chest.


Also measure the width required for your waist and hips.

How to make a dress from a tablecloth

Plot all of those measurements on your folded tablecloth and sketch in your pattern. Then cut it out as shown in the image above. Note that I was strategic in my pattern placement, so that I had the pretty edge detail of the tablecloth at the bottom and down the center-front of my dress.

Making a lace tablecloth dress

You should now have two pattern pieces: a right piece (front and back are one piece) and a mirror-image left piece.

Pinning the dress while wearing it

Pin the dress under the arms and down the front, and determine if you need to adjust anything. I needed to make the shoulders narrower.

Trimming the armhole

So, I trimmed the armhole accordingly, to get the shoulder width I wanted.

Making godet inserts

2. Make godet inserts

A godet is a piece of fabric inserted between two seams to create extra fullness in a garment. The fullness comes from their rectangular shape, flowing from the narrowest point down to the fullest point in your garment.


Measure the length you need for your inserts, from a few inches below the underarm to the bottom of the skirt.

Adding godets to the dres

Fold your extra fabric in half lengthwise, and cut a long triangular piece to fit into the side of your dress. Do not cut on the fold, because you want to end up with two matching side panel pieces.


Repeat so that you have four godets in total.

Pinning the dress on a mannequin

Pin the godets in place on the sides and front and back of your dress, with the narrowest points of the triangles at the waistline. Check that they are an adequate size.

Hand-sewing the side seams

Remove the godets now, and hand-sew each side seam, the front center, and the back center seams, from the underarm down a few inches toward the waist. 

How to make a dress out of a tablecloth

3. Attach the godets

Lay your skirt flat and open the sides, front, and back to accommodate the godets. Pin the godets in place on the dress, with the right sides facing.


Then hand-sew each godet in place.

Trimming the excess fabric

Cut off the excess fabric from the godets. You may have lots of excess fabric, because we only cut those triangles to fit a certain length – we didn’t measure width.

Going over the hand-stitching

Now go over all your hand-stitched seams with a zigzag stitch on your sewing machine.

Finishing the armholes

4. Finish the armholes

Zigzag stitch around each armhole, going around about 5 times to get a nice edge detail.

Tie-dying the lace dress

5. Be daring – dye your dress!

There was something about the white of the dress that didn’t appeal to me, so I decided to dye it. If you choose to dye your dress, check out how I did mine in the video from 6:00 to 7:10 to see what my process was.

DIY tablecloth dress with a white slip

DIY tablecloth dress tutorial

Here is my finished dress, with a white silk slip underneath it. You can experiment with different slips, because each one gives your dress a different look.

DIY tablecloth dress with a black bodysuit

Here, I'm wearing the same dress with a black bodysuit underneath.


I hope you try making this DIY tablecloth dress and let me know how it worked for you by leaving a comment.

Suggested materials:
  • Large square tablecloth
  • Scissors
  • Measuring tape
See all materials

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