Make a lovely dress from vintage lace by adding a bit of crochet.

What you need :

 A doll for  or dress form to fit the dress on. You can make the dress to go on the doll but I wanted mine to go on a hanger. I used a girl doll but you can use a baby or even a lady doll you will just have to adjust the sizes.

A piece of lace that will be long enough to make the skirt and wide enough to fit around the waist of your doll twice.

Thin crochet thread in a color to match your lace. I used DMC fil dentelles and a 60 mm crochet hook for mne,

Sewing needles, pins, tacky glue .

Measure the waist of the doll and make a strip of crochet to fit round it.  Chain enough stitches to fit round the doll and work in single crochet till it is high enough for your doll.  Mine just reaches the arm pits but you can make it higher if you like . I cannot give exact stitches here for it all depends on your model.

Gather your lace using tiny stitches till it fits the bottom of your crochet bodice.

 Sew the lace skirt to the bottom of the bodice.

Close the back seam of the bodic and skirt. I did sew first and then finished the edges of the lace with some tacky glue.

 Ask your model to help you find where the sleeves are going to fit.  Mark the spots where  you want the sleeves. I used thread.

 Attach crochet thread to one of the stitches marked on the front of the bodice.
Chain enough stitches for the sleeve opening and attach the last chain to the corresponding marked stitch at the back of the bodice forming a loop that will fit found the top of the arms of your doll.

Chain 3 and turn work, work 2 double crochet in every stich to create the puff sleeves.
Work a few more rows working 1 dc in every stitch, from now on you can word in the round  till the sleeves are long enough . Leave a long tail  of thread so you can use that to gather and finish the sleeves later.

For the front panel you will have to cut a small piece of lace that will fit  between the sleeves. Look at the photo for reference. Glue in place  with tacky glue. It is a good idea to put a little piece of paper inside the dress so you do not glue front and back together.

 If you like you can do the same thing for the back of the dress as well.

Gather the sleeves and add little bows. Glue a little silk flower to the lace pannel at the front and decorate the skit with silk ribbon bows if you like.