DIY Baladi Dress / Saidi Dress Pt 1: Make a Custom Pattern

Happy New Year! 😀

I wanted to start the new year with a DIY project that has been requested by many dancers, and it’s baladi dress. Baladi dresses are used when belly dancers dance more folk pieces, like ones with canes, and fun shaabi pieces. They can be made fitted or loose and can be simple or heavily decorated.

So in this 3-part series, you’ll see how to make this loosely fitted, simple yet elegant baladi dress with a keyhole neckline completed with a matching hip scarf. In this video, you’ll see how to make a custom pattern for this dress. Let’s get started!

Get the FREE pattern for the baladi dress keyhole neckline from here!

How to Make a  DIY Baladi Dress / Saidi Dress pattern

To make this baladi dress, you need:

Long-sleeve shirt – find a shirt that is loosely fitted to your body. You’ll use this shirt as a pattern.

Safety pin

Neckline pattern – If you want to make the keyhole neckline, print out this neckline pattern and cut it out. You can get this pattern from here .

2m of stretch fabric – Vertical stripes are common for this type of dress, but I think you can use any patterns or just plain solid colour. But make sure the fabric has a good stretch.

Basic sewing tools (See Resource page for my favourite tools)

First, put on your pattern shirt and measure 4 things:

1. the largest part of your hip
2. distance between the end of your shirt to the largest part of your hip – your shirt may end above the largest part of your hip or below. Make a note of that as well. In my case, below my hip.
3. Bottom of your neck to the floor – Try to follow your curves when you measure this.
4. Slit top to the floor – Decide where you want the slit to start and measure from there to the floor. I picked mid-thigh area.

Then on your shirt, mark where your elbow is with a safety pin, and take the shirt off.

We’ll also quickly do a little calculation before we start. Let’s take the hip measurement (the largest part of your hip) and divide it by 1.2. This accounts for the stretch of the fabric.

And divide it by 4. This is the number we’ll use next.

Spread your fabric on a flat surface, and fold it by the calculated hip measurement plus a few cm or an inch. Make sure the fold is perpendicular to the direction of the stretch.

Place the neckline pattern, and align the fold line to the fold of the fabric. I made this pattern to help you create the keyhole neckline. But it is based on my measurement, so you may have to adjust it according to your size. No matter what size you are, trace the neckline only here.

Now flip your shirt inside out, fold it in half. Place it on the fabric, and align the fold of the shirt and the fold of the fabric, and try to align the end of the neckline you drew with the shoulder seam of your shirt. If your shirt has a wider neckline, just extend the line smoothly to meet the shoulder seam.

If your shirt has a smaller neckline, mark the end of the neckline you drew on your shirt with a pin.

From there, trace the shoulder seam and the side of your shirt with 1cm or 1/2in seam allowance.

Once you get to the bottom of your shirt, take the measurement of the distance between the bottom of your shirt and the largest part of your hip. If your shirt ended above your hip, measure the distance below the bottom of your shirt. If your shirt ended below the largest part of your hip, measure the distance above the bottom of your shirt.

At this point, measure the calculated hip measurement from the fold of your fabric plus a 1cm or 1/2in seam allowance.

Now this may be bigger or smaller than the width of your shirt, and it’s okay. We just connect the lines smoothly. Just free-hand.

Then from the top of the shoulder seam, measure your measurement from the bottom of your neck to the floor plus a 1cm or 1/2in seam allowance.

And extend the line all the way down to the length.

Connect all the dots and you should have something like this.

One last thing to do before we cut this out is mark the measurement of your slit from the bottom of the dress.

Now cut this out carefully, and make a notch, or a few mm small snip, at the slit mark, both layers together.

There you have the front panel of your baladi dress.

Next we fold the fabric again to make a back panel. It’s pretty much the same process except for the neckline.

So place your shirt there, and if the neckline of your shirt was wider than the pattern, just trace your shirt with a 1cm or 1/2in seam allowance.

If the neckline of your shirt was smaller, like mine, mark the beginning of the back neckline at the fold, then mark at the pin you placed earlier. Fold over the neckline, and just connect the dots free-hand. From there, trace the shoulder seam and the rest with a 1cm or 1/2in seam allowance.

And the rest is the same as drawing the front panel. Measure the calculated hip measurement plus seam allowance, connect the lines, measure the length, mark the slit, and cut. And of course, if it’s easier, you can first make this pattern on a large piece of paper then trace it on your fabric.

There you have the back panel.

The rest is simple. Fold your fabric again and make sure the stretch is perpendicular to the fold. Place one of the shirt sleeves and align the longer fold of the sleeve with the fold of the fabric.

Trace the sleeve with a 1cm or 1/2in seam allowance. When you get to the end of the sleeve, measure 5cm or 2in and connect it with the rest with straight lines.

Then mark where you put a safety pin on the fold of the fabric.

Cut it out carefully. Make a notch at the top edge. And cut along the fold all the way to the elbow mark.

Repeat this one more time to get another sleeve ready.

So now you have all pieces of the dress ready. At this point, you can serge the raw edges if you like, but it’s stretch material so it won’t fray. 🙂

Next week, in Part 2 of the Baladi dress series, I’ll show you how to put all of these pieces together. So stay tuned and sign up for the Sparkly Belly newsletter to get notified when it’s out!

And for now, go ahead and get started on cutting out your custom baladi dress pattern. 🙂

If you’ve found awesome fabric to make your baladi dress out of, share a picture of it on Sparkly Belly’s Facebook group.

You can get the keyhole neckline pattern by signing up for the newsletter from here:

Get the FREE pattern for the baladi dress keyhole neckline from here!

Finally, if you want to make more costume bits, check out my free course, Belly Dance Costume Making 101. 

Thanks for reading, and keep sparkling! 😀

P.S. Want to try other classic baladi dress designs with a modern flare like these?

If so, check out the Aziza Baladi Dress! ↓↓

Make your own Aziza Baladi Dress here! 

Want to make more costuming bits yourself?

Sign up for my free course, Belly Dance Costume Making 101!