Upcycled skirt and tee into children's dress!

Look what I made Caida!

It was a really easy sewing project...although I learned a few things I'll do differently for the other two dresses I want to make her.  And I had to do the sewing by hand...I think if I had a sewing machine, it would have EASILY been an hour project tops...instead of all day.  :)  But oh well.  A lot of love went into that dress!

HERE'S HOW:

Take a child's sized tee, some ribbon, and a skirt or long dress-type shirt or something that you want to add to the bottom.

$2.50 Shirt and matching brown ribbon for 47 cents!  Everything else I had on hand!

My pretty thrifted skirt.  No really, take a look at these details!

I loved the ribbon/lace across the top panel of the skirt...and just the pretty brown flowery print...

And the layered, loose flow of the A-line skirt at the bottom!  LOVE this skirt, but it just didn't fit right. But I didn't have the heart to throw it away.

Let's talk sewing materials for a sec.  You'll of course need the things you always need for sewing: machine or needles/thread, pins, scissors, etc.  Mom gave me a Singer automatic scissors thingy, which I like.  I also bought some Sew No More and Fray No More (also Singer products)...I think I should have splurged and gotten Fabri Tac and Fray Check instead.  But for this project, with such thin ribbon that I didn't know how I was going to sew on (1/4"), this worked well.  (My pirate costume...that's another story!)  I guess if you're just patching up a rip or seam it's not too bad.  Just know that it DOES bleed through the fabric you use and turn everything kinda shiny and weird.  But it's not awful...in small quantities.  You definitely need some way to keep the ribbon on your dress and some other way to keep the ribbon from fraying, whatever you decide.

Okay.  Now that that's out of the way, let's get to business!  (BTW, I'm sure some version of this process would work for grown-up girls, too.  I've seen a lot of tee-shirts-and-extra-long-fabric-skirts on Pinterest.)

1. Cut your tee shirt under the bust line, about 1/2" lower than you want the actual bust to fall to allow for folding and sewing.

2. Cut your skirt as well so that it's about the same width (again, plus about 1/2" seam allowance) at the top as the tee shirt. (Although, in hindsight, I would have made it a LOT bigger and sewed some elastic in it to give it some stretch...this method doesn't really have much "give" in it.)  Since this skirt had a beautiful A-line shape, I tried to keep that shape as symmetrically as I could as I cut with some eyeballing and some LOOSE measuring with my metal ruler.  So I used most of the bottom of the skirt, still.

I pinned where the width of the tee was, and I cut outside of that about 1/2".

Then I just sewed up my new side seam (right sides together, as always) for my skirt (tip: fold the seams over TWICE before you sew so that you don't have fraying edges...especially if you're going to be hand sewing, too!) and sewed the top of the skirt to the bottom of the tee!  In hindsight that was kinda stupid...DON'T DO THAT! I mean, I had cut off the zipper side, and there wasn't any elastic...so how's she supposed to put it on?  Thankfully she's little and stickish (no curves yet) and the shirt was a little bigger than her size and she can shimmy into it fine because it's so wide...and that's where I added some ribbon along that bust line (just measured and glued it down with my sew-no-more) to help it tie behind her back and give it some shape. BUT.  WHEN I make the other two dresses, I'll invest in some wide elastic paneling and sew a wider skirt bottom to it, then sew that elastic section to the bottom of the tee...that way everything will have a little give but it will also still have a great shape at the waistline and no ribbon will be needed.  So I can avoid that fabric glue altogether!

Still, all in all, it's a quick and easy sewing project.  It still worked this time (thankfully!) and was sooooo worth it. Now Caida has a one-of-a-kind dress, hand stitched by her aunt who adores her.  :)

And SHE likes it...that's all that matters, right?  :)

It still needed something, I thought...so I used some of that scrap fabric, a little felt, a button, and a pin backing to make a fabric flower for the dress.

MY FAVORITE PART!

It can go here...

Or here...

Or, my favorite, here!

Can't wait to try more and perfect the process.  Thanks for reading!  Now, go thrift-store-raiding and upcycle some of your own clothing...for your kids or even just yourself.  :)  Cheaper than new clothes, and you'll know it's one-of-a-kind!