Thursday, May 31, 2012

Refashion: from t-shirt to dress

Annika is quite picky about her clothes (already!).  She always wants to be "fancy", and that usually means wearing a dress.  Sometimes I'll try to get her to wear a shirt and a skirt (which I would think would also be fancy), but that's just not as good as a dress.  I'm not sure if it's the comfort of a dress, or the style, or what, but a dress is her preferred wardrobe option.  So, that leaves quite a few things in her closet that often get neglected.  One of them is this t-shirt. 


We got it second-hand from a friend, and it's so cute and soft and comfy, but for whatever reason it's never been a favorite of Annika's.  So I decided to experiment with it a little.  I didn't tell Annika what I was planning to do, in case it didn't turn out properly, and I didn't cut the shirt at all, in case that she decided that she hated the finished product and wanted the shirt back to normal.

Here's my inspiration -


You can find the tutorial at "make it and love it" - it's pretty easy (although I did make a few mistakes and had to spend some quality time with my seam ripper. :P).  It's a great idea for making those cute onesies last a little bit longer, or (in my case) giving new life to a t-shirt.

Here's my finished dress -


I used some leftover fabric for the skirt, and I didn't have quite as much as I needed, so it's not as gathered and full as it could be, but I think it turned out pretty well.  It was my first time sewing gathers, so that was a new experience.  Now for the million dollar question -- would Annika like it???

I finished it this morning while the kids were at my mother-in-law's and I brought it along with me when I went to pick them up at lunch time.  Annika LOVED it!!!  She immediately wanted to wear it. 


I think it looks really cute on her (other than the fact that skirt fabric is still a bit stiff - it needs some playing and washing to soften it up!), and I think that it will get lots of wear this summer.  I may even see if there are some other t-shirts in her closet that I can transform!


7 comments:

Kristin said...

Love, LOVE! Very nice. Looking forward to whatever you come up with next!

Anonymous said...

LOVE! It turned out great.....beautiful job!! :)

Ashley

Ashley said...

LOVE! It turned out great.....beautiful job!! :)

Ashley

Melissa said...

So awesome. Loved that shirt! What a great idea:) Yeah for the sewing machine love!

Pamela said...

You are amazing! It looks awesome. Kiandra was exactly like Annika and lived in dresses (mostly jumpers actually). It actually worked out pretty good because she was so tiny around the waist (adjustable waist had not been invented yet-or it certainly wasn't as wide spread!) and so the jumpers didn't have to fit her as well as a pair of pants would have.

I always enjoy seeing your sewing projects! Thanks for sharing them.

Anonymous said...

it looks great, i am glad it worked out and i can see why Annika liked it so much!

Aritha V. said...

Great!