those northern skies: restyle a too big dress into a cute skirt and blouse combination

Thursday, February 18, 2010

restyle a too big dress into a cute skirt and blouse combination

C wants more dresses. K has a gazillion dresses because she has a big sister. C, not so many. In addition, I don't like a lot of what passes for clothes for kids her age. So I am starting to look into different refashions. I took this dress, which I found at Goodwill for two dollars but was two sizes too big (a Target dress),

and this shirt (on clearance at Walmart for five dollars)

and made this

Measure the child’s waist.
Measure down from the waist for length you want the skirt. Add an inch to an inch and a half to the length for the elastic casing.
Measure from bottom of dress up to find out where to cut the dress.

Cut the dress in half. The bottom half will be the skirt.
Fold the skirt in half at the waist. Figure out what a quarter the waist size (divide your waist measurement by four) then add one inch. Measure that distance from fold towards edge of skirt. Mark this distance on both halves of the skirt.
Unfold. Use a ruler to draw a line that angles from the bottom of the skirt to the waist marks on both sides.

Sew new side seams on the line. Cut off excess fabric.
Fold over the waist of the skirt about an 1/8 of an inch and sew.
Fold it over again wide enough to encase the elastic. Sew the casing down all around the skirt, leaving an opening in the back large enough to feed the elastic through.
Cut a piece of elastic to the size of the waist.
Run it through the casing. Sew the ends together.
Embellish the shirt using the left over fabric from the dress.
If the dress has cap sleeves, use a seam ripper to remove them.
I was lucky, the sleeves of the dress fit the sleeve openings of the shirt perfectly so I just tucked the shirt sleeve inside the shirt, reversed the dress sleeve and pinned it to the outside of the shirt lining up the openings (if you sewn patterns, this will make sense after a fashion.