I recently tried making one of my favorite maternity shirts off-shoulder but I cut too much off the neckline. I love the black and white stripes and drawstring sides of the top so I decided to try to turn it into a dress for my two year old. The above is the end result! A little bit of sweet and a little bit of funky. And she loves the big “pretty flower”.
What You’ll Need:
A women’s tee for the skirt portion of the dress
A child’s tee in your model’s size for the bodice of the dress
Riley Blake Ruffled Elastic for the straps
A Ballpoint needle (for sewing knits)
Rotary Mat and Cutter
1/4″ elastic
1/4″ elastic
Here are my two shirts before. The child’s shirt is a $3 Garanimals shirt from WalMart and I got the maternity tee at a TJ Maxx for $5 on clearance.
My daughter measures about 13.5″ from chest to knee so I decided to make my overall dress length around 14″. The bodice I wanted to be 4″. Since we’re going to make the sides of the bodice ruched though and add some elastic at the top of the dress, I cut the pink t-shirt 8″ up from the bottom. We’re using the bottom half of the tee but save the top to make another cute t-shirt dress.
I cut the maternity tee 10″ up from the bottom (again, for an overall dress length of about 14″ or so). This will be the skirt portion of the dress.
What was the bottom hem of the pink tee is now the top part of the dress bodice.
Next, gather the top edge of the skirt. I used this shirring foot. I set my stitch length to about 4.0 and up the tension to high (7-9 depending on how much gathering I want).
Adjust gathering so that the skirt is the same size as the bodice.
Turn the bodice wrong side out. Slide skirt into bodice and line up raw edges at the top (right sides of your fabrics should be together). Match up side seams and pin in several places. Sew with a 3/8 inch seam. I didn’t bother serging since these knits won’t fray!
Flip bodice up.
Then I adjusted the drawstrings on each side of the skirt to be 5″ long and tied in a double knotted bow. I didn’t want the strings hanging down so long so I knotted each and cut off several inches as below.
Now we’re going to ruch the sides of the bodice. Cut two pieces of elastic the same length as you want the bodice to end up. For me, that’s 4″.
Turn dress wrong side out and pin the elastic at the top of bottom of the side hems on each side as shown below. Tack in place with a few stitches at the top and bottom of each elastic piece.
Now stretch elastic to be the same size as the bodice as you sew the elastic right over the side seam.
When you let go, it shrinks up. Voila! Instant ruched sides!
Pretty cool, huh?
With the dress inside out, turn the top edge over 1″ to create an elastic casing. Sew with a 3/4″ seam leaving several inches open to insert the elastic. My daughter’s chest measures 21″ so I cut my elastic to be 19″ since 1/4″ elastic stretches a lot. Insert elastic, sewing ends together several times, ensuring no twists. Then close up the opening you left in the casing.
Now your dress looks something like this:
Pull out your ruffled elastic and cut two straps. I tried the dress on my daughter and measured how long each needed to be. I cut each strap to be about 7″ long.
Pin the front straps 3″ from center and the back straps about 1.5″ from center. Having them closer together in the back helps keep them from sliding of the shoulders.
Sew around the top of the dress with a 1/8 inch topstitch, going back and forth over each strap a few times when you reach one (and taking care not to sew over the elastic in the casing).
And that’s all!
Add embellishments as desired. I felt like it needed something more and I happened to have this big black flower handy. I used sew-on snaps so I can remove it during washing.
Linking up on:
Share Photos of things you make using my tutes in the Designed by Dawn Nicole Flikr Group
omg too cute! i wonder if i could make that in *big person* sizes for me
So cute and I love the color combo!
So cute Dawn! I am working on my girl’s wardrobe (they grow too fast!) right now. Ideas like these are great!
WOW!!!! This is really a fun dress!!! I would wear it if you made it a little bigger hehe
I love pink and black together!
I would love it if you share this over at The DIY Dreamer… PLEASE
http://thediydreamer.blogspot.com/2012/03/from-dream-to-reality-linky-party-6.html
OMG, seriously so cute! Gosh I wish I could sew! You did a great job.
I saw this posted at Tip Junkie and loved it, and I’d be happy if you’d come link it up at my *Get Creative* party this week!
http://www.justalittlecreativity.com/2012/03/get-creative-party-4-and-features.html
Hope to see you there
-Molly
Thanks for sharing ! This is just wow ! I made a dress like this for my 12 year old and…. she loves it ! Made of 2 old shirts, she’s happy and so am I.
Thanks for the inspiration.
Gr. Sylvia
http://zaansezolder.blogspot.nl/2012/06/recykleren-is-fun.html