Muumuu dress design ideas & sewing tutorial information and photos

My wedding dress photographed on me in October 2005, but designed, sewn, and worn for my wedding in 1987. McCall's Pattern 2537 , but altered right from the beginning, making the yoke more modest, and choosing different sleeve lengths & types, adding the long cuff, for my wedding dress, and a puffy sleeve from another pattern, and having fabric under the lace, not just see through areas. We also made the dress the 3 tiered long version, and put flat lace above each ruffle.

Rick and I on our wedding day, these are our best wedding photos, we only have a few, relatively dark, blurry photos. My dress is the muumuu, but I wore a self fabric belt covered with the flat lace, that had the same crystal buttons as my cuffs.  I can wear the dress still, without the belt, or I could make the belt longer, and still wear it that way. I prefer my muumuus loose, though. The other photos is our son David, & daughter Jamie, she had just stolen his binkie right out of his mouth, because she had lost hers, the little rascal! (The 2 photos were together when I photographed them, and my blog doesn't have a crop feature, so it is included, lol!)

My McCall's Pattern which was my first muumuu pattern. The other photos are catalog photos I use as inspiration for designing my own dresses.

My newest muumuu dress, the pink gauze with flat white lace, and the white satin ribbon I twin needle embroidered with my old Sears Kenmore 158.18033, in light green and dark green, then used it to edge my lace at the yoke.

Navy blue crinkled rayon muumuu with a white front collar, that I appliqued an embroidery strip to. The embroidery strip or ribbon, had been a "second", damaged, from the factory, where some stitches had been skipped, so I satin stitched with the same color of thread, to finish it, so it wouldn't unravel in the laundry, appliqued it to my yoke, and LOVE it! I have one more white yoke with the last piece of this embroidery ribbon, that I am going to cut out a brown crinkle rayon muumuu dress to sew it onto. I LOVE getting to personalize my dresses! Photo of me holding Max, at hospital in 2018, then me holding Cassie, 2019.

Yoke design idea as I created my blue and white muumuu design. Coverstitched "belt loops" formed into criss cross pattern, on white background. Once I determined how I wanted it to look, I topstitched them down, and assembled the rest of the yoke. This type of perfectly parallel stitching can also be created with either a bias tape maker, and sewing twin needles, if you can find one for your machine, with the correct distance between the needles. Only zigzag sewing machines, with the top or front access bobbin can do this specific type of twin needle sewing, that has a zigzag of the bobbin thread, although Necchi's Supernova and BU have twin needle capability, one needle in front of the other, though they are a side loading bobbin zigzag machine.

The blue and white fabric does fade pretty badly in the laundry, but I still love this cool summer muumuu dress. I have sewn this fabric into the muumuu dress twice, once just with the regular blue and white fabric, no fancy  yoke, just a plain yoke, I wore it until it was see through, then made this one with the pretty criss crosses of  "coverstitched belt loops", sewn to the yoke. You can really see the difference in the fading, when comparing the design photos to the dress I've been washing and wearing for at least a year!

Notice the white lace inset strip down the center of the sleeves, keeps this cool, despite the 3/4 length sleeves.

Green polyester "crinkle" dress with white embroidery sewn at yoke front, and around neckline, and flat white lace above the ruffle, and at the end of the bell sleeves. I don't like too full of sleeves, so vary the length and fulness to my own comfort. I am holding my new granddaughter Cassie, at the hospital in this photo 2019.

Blue and white muumuu with short bell sleeves, white yoke, navy blue flat lace, and a white ruffle. It is heavier fabric, except the ruffle, so is comfortable in winter, as well as summer in North Carolina.

Brown double knit, difficult fabric to sew, due to spongy texture, works best with walking foot, or a roller foot) muumuu dress, the inside details, sewn with pink serger thread, you can see the seams are all finished with a 3 thread overlock stitch, then the yoke shoulder seams are stabilized with a woven scrap fabric selvage (if you don't have seam tape, or other seam stabilizer aids, you can use strips of selvage cut from fabric of your choice, the selvage is more tightly, firmly woven than the body of the fabric), then sew the square neckline, you then turn it right side out, and use the burrito method to sew the gathered front and back bodice of the dress onto the yoke. 

Brown doubleknit muumuu, it is actually better for winter, it has the patch side pockets, and tucks instead of gathers at the yoke, and for hems, I used a rolled hem on my serger, even for the pocket tops.

My first pink muumuu with white lace, I used a sheer cotton batiste, for puffy sleeves, with a gathered lace ruffle cuff, white flat lace on the yoke overlaying the pink, and then white lace at the top of the ruffle on the skirt of the dress. I wore it during my pregnancy with my daughter Jamie, and later gave it to my sister, Michelle, Higginson, when she was pregnant. I had underlined the bodice of the dress, so no slip was needed. This was taken at a little dairy farm Rick and I lived and worked at in Meridian Idaho, for a few months before Jamie was born.

2 different photos of more muumuus on me, the green muumuu I made before I got married, when I lived in hot Yucca Valley, California, but was very grateful for my muumuus, when I was pregnant, with our daughter, then our son. This photo on the left, is about a week before David was born. The photo on the right is 2001, I'm wearing one of my favorite turquoise muumuu dresses I made, it lasted about 15 years, with a bit of patching here and there, before I had to retire it, finally! I'm just cutting out a new one, I miss these 2 dresses! Two of my favorite colors and fabrics!

My black muumuu dress in a crinkled poly cotton, is so old and worn, it is almost gray! I am holding my grandson Max here. You can see I actually sewed bias trim over the center front of the neckline, because it had frayed to threads, but I still wear it, so I added the bias trim, to ensure it would last maybe another year, lol!