How to Add a Flounce to Any Dress

By Sarah LewisSep 7, 2021

Hello! It’s Sarah here from Sew Salty and Free! I want to show you how to add a flounce to any pattern you want!

For today’s example we’re gonna take a look at The Be Gracefull Dress Pattern.

I made this dress back in January. I shortened the bodice by 2 inches because I like it to fall right under my bust more like an empire waist. But I forgot to add those 2 inches back into the bottom of the skirt… So this dress has been shorter than I like and I haven't really worn it because it wasn't very comfortable for me.

Pic of how short it ended up after my pattern modification:

I've always said one of these days I'll add a sash or something to the bottom to add some length. Well, my Grandma was throwing a beach style get together one Saturday and wanted everyone to dress beachy. So Friday morning I decided a flounce is what I wanted to add to this dress so I could wear it Saturday. In a few hours I created a flounce pattern piece for the bottom of my dress and successfully cut out the fabric and added it to my dress! I also decided late that evening that it would be AMAZING if my daughter had a dress to match mine! So at 7pm I started printing the pattern out and by 9:30pm I was pulling her out of bed to try on her new dress! She is wearing The School Cool Dress!

So lets get started on this flounce pattern!

There’s a couple of things we need to do first. You’ll want to decide how long you want your flounce. I wanted to add about 3-4 inches, so I needed a piece that was going to be about 3-4 inches plus a ¼” for seam allowance and a ½” for hemming. If you are adding it to a dress you haven’t made yet you’ll want to cut this amount off of he bottom of your skirt pattern piece as well. Now you’ll need to measure the width of the your skirt piece/ the bottom of your dress pattern piece. Create a rectangular pattern piece using these measurements (Length x Width). Remember, if you’re adding this to a dress you already made like I am be sure to add a seam allowance to the outer edges of your pattern width!

Now make marks down the width of this pattern piece about 1 ½” apart from each other and trace them into full lines.

Cut each of these lines all the way to the edge without cutting them apart. This creates a little hinge on one end.

If you have large sheets of butcher or tracing paper it makes this next step a lot easier. If not, no worries! I don’t have any myself. So I just taped a few pieces of computer paper together. You’ll begin by taping one of your rectangles to the paper (butcher, tracing, computer, etc) and then rotating/spreading it out about 2” on the hinge we made with the cut.

You’ll continue doing this until you’ve spread out every one of the rectangles. You may need to add more sheets of computer paper. This is a little bit of trial and error. If your skirt piece is wider, 2” might be too wide and your pattern piece may curve back around on top of itself before you are finished. You may need to use 1 ½” or a different measurement depending on the width you started with. 2” worked great for my skirt piece which was about 27” long.

Once you’ve finished taping your pieces take a pencil and a curved ruler if you have one available (if not, freehanding your curve is just fine) and draw curve along the edges of the rectangles you just taped down to create a nice neat curve on the top and bottom of our piece.

Cut out your pattern piece around these lines. You can now remove the taped on rectangles if you wish.

Now we can cut out our fabric and attach our flounce!

This flounce is made up of two pieces of fabric and is NOT cut on any folds. Fold your fabric in half (this is so you can cut both our at the same time, if you are using directional fabric check that you are folding it in a way that keeps your fabric in the direction you need it). Place your newly created pattern piece on top and cut it out all around every edge of the pattern piece.

Put these two pieces right sides together and sew together the short ends.

Now you’ll have a piece of fabric that is a full circle. Match the side seams up with the side seams of your garment and pin along the raw edges. Sew around this pinned edge.