The 30 Minute Upcycled Halter Dress

The above used to be a too-short dress and a too-small tee shirt pictured below:

What You’ll Need:

-Ballpoint needle (for sewing with knits)

-A too small tee

-A too small or too short dress

-1/4 inch elastic

-46″x1″ strip of knit fabric to make halter tie (I actually used a skinny fabric belt from my scrap bin from an old dress of mine so I didn’t even have to make one.)

-All your sewing goodiesMy grandma had given the tutu dress to my daughter for her birthday just a few months ago, so when she had a major growth spurt, I was so sad when it no longer fit! Problem solved. This simple upcycle means a new-ish dress that will hopefully fit all year. Check places like TJ Maxx and Ross for cheapie dresses you can upcycle in this manner.

Let’s get started…

I started my measuring my daughter from chest to waist. She’s about 9 inches so I cut 9″ off the bottom of the black tee. I also cut the skirt off of the dress, keeping about 1″ of the pink top attached because I wanted it to show on the new dress.

What was the bottom hemed edge of the black tee is now the top hem of the bodice of the halter dress. With the black bodice right side out and the skirt inside out (right sides of fabric together), pin the skirt to the bodice along the raw edges as shown below. Be sure to line up the side seams and pin evenly.

Sew with a 1/2″ seam allowance, stretching a bit as you go if one part of your dress is smaller than the other.

Turn your dress right side out and topstitch with a 1/8″ seam allowance.

Now your dress looks like this:

The top edge of your dress is already hemmed since it used to be the bottom of your tee shirt so it is already a casing. I simply seam ripped open a small 1-inch area inside the back of the dress so I could slip in some 1/4″ elastic. I cut the elastic to be 1″ smaller than my daughter’s chest circumference. Feed your elastic through with a safety pin and sew the ends together back going back and forth several times. Then sew up the opening in the casing.

Now your dress looks like this. The elastic will just help the dress stay up a little better!

If you’re creating your strap from scratch, fold in half lengthwise with right sides together. With a 1/4″ seam allowance, sew all the way around leaving one short end open for turning. Use a small safety pin to turn tube right side out. Turn the raw edges of the open under under just a bit and sew closed (so that there are no raw edges exposed. Press and topstitch with a 1/8″ seam allowance all the way around.

Measure the find the front center of your dress and mark with a pin.

Fold your halter tie in half to find the center and then fan out into a v-shape as shown below.

Maintaining the v-shape pin onto your dress as shown. I pinned each edge of the “V” about 1″ from the center point we marked with a pin. (This step showed up better in black and white).

Sew the “V” part of the halter strap onto the dress with a 1/8″ inch seam allowance on both edges of the strap. (You’re basically sewing right over the topstitching you did earlier).

And that’s it!

With the money I saved by upcycling this dress, I think my little miss needs some cute cowboy boots to complete this outfit, don’t you? The rain boots will have to do for now.