cute toddler dress: tutorial

Today, I made a little girls dress from a half yard of fabric and a t-shirt! It was super fun, and so I took pictures along the way:) I got the idea from this blog. The tutorial just used a t-shirt, but I wanted the dress a little longer than just a little girls t-shirt, so I used yardage to complete the dress. If you want more of a tunic top, then follow the blog linked above.

Materials
-Your choice of fabric(the amount will vary depending
on the size of the dress you are making and you can
make this for any size girl/ woman)

-A t-shirt (fitted is the best) in a size relatively close to
 the size you wear(or the person you are making this
for wears)

-Thread in a color coordinating with the shirt

Instructions


Step 1: Take the shirt and cut it around where would be an empire waist, for a little girl this is 1" to 2" below the armpits of the shirt.
Sorry I don't have a picture of the shirt before I cut it up, I was a bit eager to start this adorable dress! Save the bottom of the shirt! You will need it in about 10 seconds!




























Step 2: Cut the bottom part of the shirt at one of the side seams, and measure the width of it.
Then, take the width and multiply it by two. For example, the width of this shirt is 24". Multiply 24 by 2 and you get 48.

Step 3: To determine the length of the skirt of your dress, measure from the bottom of the bodice, to where you would like your dress to fall. Add three inches for seam allowance.

















Step 4: Using the length you found in step 3 and the width you
 found in step 2 as the dimensions, cut the skirt out of your
yardage.

Step 5: With right sides of your fabric together, sew it into a tube using a zigzag stitch.













Step 6: Hem one edge of your tube.
















Step 7: Using long basting stitches, stitch a line, along the raw
edge of the tube. When you are done, do not backstitch, and
 leave a long thread hanging off of the end of the seam.

Step 8: Holding the long thread on the still raw, but stitched edge, pull the fabric down so that it starts scrunching up. Do this until the tube is only a little bits smaller than the bottom of the bodice.










Step 9: Pin, Pin, Pin!!! I did not take pictures of this, but I will try to explain what you need to do in great detail, since your success at doing this will make the dress beautiful! Do all of this right sides up(not inside out). As you are pinning the pieces together(the skirt on the inside and the bodice on the outside), you need to fold the edge of the bodice under a little bit, so that it looks like a finished edge. After you have accomplished this, stick the thin through the folded over edge, the skirt(right under the basting stitches) and back up through the shirt. Space the pins about an inch apart(yes, this is a lot of pins, but you will be in trouble otherwise :)).

Step 10: Using a very small straight stitch, stitch along the bottom of the bodice(about an eighth of an inch away from the fake finished edge you made). Make sure you catch all of the folds of the skirt AND bodice in this seam, or else, you will have to go back and stitch over them again.

Step 11: If you would like, you can add some embroidery, a fun tag, or some fun buttons to the bodice, or down the skirt. The shirt I used already had some fun flowers on it, so I just added my Studio E tag, and was done!









The Wonderful finished product:

The FrontThe Back

Enjoy!

I would love to see finished products if anyone makes this!

~eliZabeth~