I can’t wait to share this next project with you! My sweet friend and neighbor just gave birth to a little girl, and I decided to hand make a few gifts for her, including a onesie dress. They’re so cute and really easy to make. You will need a sewing machine, but even a novice sewer shouldn’t have any problem making this adorable dress.
Some links in this post are affiliate links. For more information, click here.
I started with a newborn short sleeve onesie. I went to my local Hobby Lobby and purchased 1/4 yard of fabric, everything else I had on hand. (Note: since I was making my dress for a newborn, 1/4 yard was enough for the length. If you’re making a dress for an older child you may need to purchase 1/2 yard so you can make it longer).
The first thing you want to do is look at your onesie, and decide where you want the waist, or top of the skirt, to be. Use a ruler to measure from the armpit seam to wherever you want the top of your skirt to be (I went down approximately 1.5″ on a newborn onesie). Use a pen to mark the spot, then measure down the exact same amount from the other armpit seam and make a mark on that side too.
Next, use a ruler to line up the marks and draw a line all the way across the front of your onesie connecting the marks under each armpit. Flip the onesie over and draw a line connecting the marks across the back of the onesie as well. You will now have a line going all the way around the waist of your onesie, and this will be your guide when attaching the skirt to the onesie.
I highly recommend using a Pilot Frixion Ball Erasable Gel Pen. You can write on fabric with this pen, and the marks disappear with the heat from an iron.
To figure out how much fabric you need for the skirt, lay your onesie flat on the table and measure the width right where you drew your line, from one side seam to the other side seam. (My newborn onesie measured 6″ across). Take whatever number you get, and multiply it by 4, and this gives you the amount of fabric you will need to wrap around your onesie. For example, since my onesie measured 6″ across, I multiplied it by 4 and got 24. So I need 24″ of fabric to create the width of my skirt.
The length of the skirt is less specific and can be adjusted to however long or short you want it to be. Where you decided to make the waist line on your onesie will also determine how long your skirt needs to be. Once you have your waist line drawn, lay your fabric on top of the onesie and decide how long you want it to be. Remember to leave extra fabric (at least 1 inch) to create a hem. You’ll also lose a little length when you attach the elastic to the top edge of your fabric as well. If you’re not sure, leave it a little longer than what you think you’ll need. You can always make a bigger hem or trim it a bit.
Next, make the bottom hem for your skirt. I folded the edge of my fabric a half inch and ironed it. Then folded it over once more and ironed again. So this gave me a half inch seam, but since I folded it twice, I used one inch of fabric to create the seam. Now sew your seam. 
Now that you have your hem sewn on the bottom edge of your fabric, you’re going to attach the elastic to the top edge of your fabric. Place the fabric face down on your sewing machine, then place the elastic on top of the fabric, right at the top edge of your fabric. Put the end of both under the machine needle and sew a few stitches up and back to attach the elastic to the fabric just at the corner.
Now you’re going to pull on the elastic and stretch it as you sew it to the skirt. Stretching the elastic while you attach it to the skirt is what allows the fabric to be gathered and have some stretch once it’s attached to the onesie.
Now that your top and bottom seams are finished, we need to attach both side edges together. Lay the skirt fabric on a table, right side up, and fold it in half. Both sides should be touching now, with the back of the fabric on the outside. Sew your sides together to create the back seam, and there’s your skirt.
Now take your onesie and fold it in half length-wise, so the front of both sleeves are touching. The center of the back of your onesie should be right at the outside edge of the fold now. Make a mark on your skirt line right at the center of the back, so you know where to put your back seam. This way the back seam of the skirt will run right down the center of the back of the onesie.
Place the onesie on your table with the neck at the bottom of the table (so the onesie is upside down). Now turn the skirt inside out, and slide the onesie inside of the skirt until the top of the elastic is at the line you drew on your onesie, and pin the skirt in place. So your onesie is upside down, but the skirt is right side up and inside out.
Sew right down the middle of the elastic, attaching the skirt to the onesie, removing pins as you sew. Flip skirt over and there you have it. 
At this point you can leave it as it is, or you can add an embellishment. I decided to attach ribbon across the front of the dress, turn the ribbon over at each end and stitch. Then hand attach with needle and thread at each end, then evenly space out two the three more spots and attach to the onesie. I then cut three flowers from a flowered trim I had and hand stitched them to the ribbon. I also made a matching headband.
I just love it and I can’t wait to give it to my friend along with the other things I made for the new baby!
*Note: If you choose a chevron or similar patterned fabric, you may need to take extra care to line it up properly along the back seam so the pattern runs seamlessly around the entire skirt. I recommend folding your fabric in half at the very beginning and lining up your pattern before you start making any cuts. Once you have your fabric pattern lined up, you can make straight cuts across the top and bottom and the pattern will line up nicely on the back seam.
If you have any questions let me know and I’ll try to walk you through it!
Wanna hang out more? We do too! Sign up to get our email updates here.
Or join us on social media: Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, & Google+
You May Also Like:
How To Make A Tulle Tutu Skirt (No Sew!)
Chalk Paint Tips For Beginners
How To Turn Any Acrylic Paint Into Fabric Paint
Vicki, this is ADORABLE!!! I’ve seen onesie dresses before, but yours with the detailing (like the cute flower belt) are the best! So cute. Thanks for linking at our first On Display Thursday link party! We are so glad to have you. Pinned this to my sewing board!
Bre, thank you so much for your kind words and for hosting this link party. xxx Vicki
What length do you make your elastic?
Hi Laura, I had a length of elastic a couple of yards long, but I went and measured. I would say it’s about 13 inches in length and I stretched it all the way as I was sewing it to the skirt. When I got to the end of the skirt I simply cut it from my long piece. So depending how much tension you apply to the elastic will really determine how long of a piece you will use. I hope this helps, please feel free to ask any other questions. I really want you or anyone to be able to successfully accomplish this adorable dress. xxx Vicki
I had the same question. I make these all the time now for my shop. Here’s what I did. with the width across the onesie x 2 + 1″ (for 1/2″ seam) or + 1/2″ if using a 1/4″ seam for the back.
Thanks for sharing your measurements, Pam! I’d love to see the dresses you make if you want to leave a link to your shop! Happy New Year to you!!!
These are adorable! Love the chevron. Maybe one to go with my adorable niece!
Rachel, thank you. I think your niece would look adorable in a dress like this. I hope you give it a whirl, it sounds like your very capable of making one for her. But if you find yourself too busy working on your house you might consider stopping by our etsy store. We will be opening our store and putting some really cute onesie dresses there within the week. Love your blog and thanks for stopping by. xx Vicki
Thanks so much for linking up at Teach Me Tuesdays last week. Your link is very much appreciated! Hope to see you again, starts tonight @ 8pm CST.
Have a great week!
Thanks Bobbi! We love checking out all the great projects linked up to Teach Me Tuesday! Thanks so much for hosting and for having us 🙂
Oh how cute. I love this idea. Makes me want to have a baby, but my baby is 19 and the thought of doing all that baby stuff again, well…not liking that so much. I guess I will have to wait for a friend or family member to have a baby. Thank you again for linking up at the Party in your PJs link party.
Thanks Kim!! And I hear you…I would love to have a little girl to make these cute dresses for, but I think I’m destined to be the only female in our house of boys (4 little ones plus the husband). So glad we found your link party..so many cute projects linked up! Hope you have a great week!
I’m so excited to try this tutorial! I totally tried a onesie dress on a whim and it didn’t turn out quite as amazing as I imagined (LOL)! I’m featuring you at this week’s Creative Spark Link Party, hope to see more of your amazing projects linked up this week!
Hi Becky and Glenna!
Becky I hope you have better success with this onesie dress. Please let me know if you hit a snag with anything, I would be happy to talk you through it. Thank you for the feature on your link party Amy and I appreciate it and can’t wait to see all the other projects!
Now I want another baby girl so that I can make one of these! So cute, and I am totally pinning for all my friends with baby girls!
Thank you Tammy!
Sooooo adorable. I need to make one for Baby B! Thanks for linking up to Motivational Monday!
Baby B would look so cute in this! You have the most adorable girls. I have all boys and it’s not nearly as fun to make stuff for boys 🙂
These are so adorable! Thanks for sharing with us at Your Designs This Time!
Emily & Erin
Thanks so much, Emily!!
Just Adorable! I love it. Great explaination. I think I could do it. Thanks!
Hey Amie Jo! I see you already found the onesie dress :). You can definitely make this! If you start on it and get stuck just shoot us an email or Facebook message and we will walk you through it. The great thing about this dress is you really only need to be able to sew a straight line since you’re using the onesie as the base of the outfit. And if you do make one, promise you’ll send us a picture so we can see it!!
I love this tutorial and can’t wait to try it. I am seriously a beginner when it comes to sewing, so I have a question that may be obvious to those with experience! I know you stretched out the elastic as you sewed it to the skirt so that the skirt would have some stretch. But what about once you sew it down to the onsie? Doesn’t that keep the skirt (and onesie) from stretching? I’m just worried about accidentally making the onesie so tight that the baby can’t wear it. Thanks for your help!!
Hi Amy, I had this concern myself, however it did not prevent the onesie or the skirt from stretching. Just to let you know I did not stretch the skirt when attaching to the onesie, I just sewed normally. I gave both of the onesie dresses show in this tutorial to my neighbor for her daughter and she said there was not a problem with the stretchiness. Thank you for your question and please don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any other questions.
Great, thanks! I’m trying this project today!!
Oh good! Please let me know how it turns out, and send us a picture so we can see how cute it is!!!
Hi Amy, I love how your onesie dress turned out. I was just wondering how the stretchiness is on the completed dress. Thanks Vicki
The stretchiness turned out fine, like you said! I ended up having to stretch the onesie just a tiny bit as I sewed the skirt on, so that it would stay lined up with my pins, so maybe that helped. It fits my daughter perfectly! Thanks again for the tutorial!!
Very cute! I would love it if you joined and contribute your awesome posts at my link party at City of Creative Dreams, starts on Fridays 😀 Hope to see you there at City of Creative Dreams Link Party.
Thanks so much, Shanice! We’ll definitely stop by!
Aww, this is absolutely adorable. Love the idea. I’ve never really been good at using the sewing machine, but this makes me want to try again!
Thanks for sharing at Marvelous Monday on Smart Party Planning 🙂
Thank you Catherine!, This cute onesie dress is so simple and quick to put together, and looks adorable on. Looking forward to another Marvelous Monday linkup. See you soon!
Thank you so much Amy & Vicki for your easy to follow tutorial! I am making two of these today for my niece’s baby shower tomorrow. Wish me luck!
I had such fun using your tutorial today. I made my new granddaughter a dress. I do not see where I can post the picture but I just love it. Thanks for posting this. Char Hauser
Thank you for your kindness in sharing
Amy,
Thank you for the inspiration and instructions for this adorable dress. I just made one from a long sleeved Halloween onesie and some cute ghost fabric. Now I just need to find an embellishment.
It sounds adorable, Valerie! I’d love to see a picture!