3.15.2012

a new Easter dress

I think it is a pretty great tradition to give little girls a new dress for Easter.  This will be the first year that I have done this for my little one, and I am happy to say that this one cost me absolutely nothing! 

I have seen a lot of tutorials/images online (and by online we all know that I mean Pinterest) for how to turn a man's dress shirt into a dress for a little girl.  I have wanted to try it for a while and have been looking for ideas of how to make the final product look more like a dress than a hand-me-down shirt.  And I think that I have found the solution, ruffles! 



To be honest, this project was so much more fun than I imagined it ever being.  Like usual, I didn't have a pattern to go from so I just kind of made it all up, which means it fits a little funny, but for a first time DIY shirt-to-dress-conversion-project, I am quite pleased with how it turned out.  It did take a little more time than I thought, but that was mostly me being a perfectionist. 







So, first, I traced about 3/4" around one of Lynlee's dresses that currently fit in pencil on the original shirt.  Sewed up the sides and the top shoulders.  Next, I made a little bias-tape out of some extra scraps to make a nice edge on the front collar.  After that, I cut 4 more long strips (from the sleeves cause they were the longest) and used this tutorial for the ruffles.  What took the most time was ironing and finishing the edges of the strips so my ruffles wouldn't fray. 

After that, I am not sure where the idea came from, but I know I was inspired.  I cut the cuffs of the remaining sleeves and trimmed them to fit in place for the sleeves of the dress.  Genius idea, because I had no idea how to make sleeves.  I also feel like this adds a lot of "this used to be my daddy's shirt" personality to the dress but doesn't make it look too strange. 

Anyway, this isn't really much of a tutorial, but thought I should jot down some stuff just in case I ever want to remember this in the future.

3 comments:

Marjie said...

Bridget, what do you mean "don't look too closely"?! It's perfect! Loved the idea for sleeves... so so so cute!

Aubrey said...

Love the ruffles and the dress and boots are absolutely adorable. I'm so impressed. You're doing so many intense projects! Well done.

Aunt Beth said...

If that's not the most clever little project. You are a genius!

I'm thinking one of Dane's old shirts could make a fun top for me....

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...