My daughter Lily is a big Taylor Swift fan, and after the Eras tour she decided to sew the Willow outfit. It wound up being a really fun mother-daughter pattern drafting project!
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Sewing Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Willow Dress – Designing the Pattern
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My 15-year-old daughter drafted, cut, and stitched this dress. I offered some guidance and support, but she did all of the work. Here is the process we used.
Lily started by finding a photo of Taylor Swift online, dragging it into Procreate on her iPad, and tracing the lines. The image above is the result.
Next, she created a rough sketch of the different components, and overlaid her measurements. We used this sketch as a reference for pattern pieces, which she measured out and drafted onto Swedish tracing paper.
Swedish tracing paper is special, because it feels like a slightly stiff fabric, and has that same durability. Unlike regular tracing paper, it does not tear easily.
I should note here that I led her astray, because I had her create pattern pieces that would hit her natural waist. I only realized at the end that Taylor’s dress has a very high waist – almost empire height.
Sewing the Willow Dress
It took a while to find fabric for this dress! Goldenrod is not the most common fabric color, and we were looking for fabric that would also be genuinely comfortable to wear. Around this time, I flew down to L.A. to visit my friend Gwen. We went to three different fabric shops, and finally found this lovely waffle weave with just enough fabric left on the bolt.
Obviously, Taylor’s dress is not made out of waffle weave fabric. But this works for the look, and it’s so comfy to wear!
Lily started with the skirt. It’s a layered, gathered skirt, so there was a lot of serging of edges and then a lot of gathering. Our long hallway upstairs proved incredibly useful for this step!
She stitched everything together.
Some details in teh bodice required hand sewing:
Sewing the Cape
I have a fun story about this cape. My parents lived in Sweden for a few years. While they were there, they picked up a pattern for a medieval cape. I’m the only person in my family who does much sewing, so I wound up with the pattern – which happens to look an awful lot like the cape that Taylor Swift wears!
The Swedish “pattern” was actually a pamphlet in Swedish with a few basic measurements. I don’t speak Swedish (I never lived there; only my parents and some younger siblings), but I was able to use Google Lens to translate it.
Isn’t the end result stunning? Lily wore this for Halloween the year she sewed it (my blog backlog is very real); she also wore it to Dickens Faire this past Christmas.
The cape was so fun that she stitched up a second cape for her younger sister Anna, who also wore her cape for Dickens Faire.
I loved helping my daughter re-create Taylor’s Willow Dress from the Eras tour. What sewing adventures have you been on lately?
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MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
It looks amazing, and I agree that waffle weave is so comfortable to wear.
It’s one of my favorite fabrics!
This is such a neat project! I enjoyed reading about it. She did a great job making the dress. I think it is neat you taught her to design a pattern that would fit her. I also design my own dress patterns and sometimes try to design clothes for my children.
Thank you, Amy! I really enjoyed working on this project with her. I imagine it’s hard to get your little ones to stay still long enough to measure and design clothes, but you definitely have a knack for it!