*t-shirt dress tutorial

Recently I have had the opportunity to make a few t-shirt dresses for a sweet little girl who lives in a world of boys! (She has four brothers)  Believe it or not.. my dear mother in love made t-shirt dresses for me, oh I don't know.. maybe twenty or so years ago. The ones she made for me fell more at the hips while this one falls right above the waistline.

I found the t-shirts at a second hand store for less than two dollars each. The fabric is from my quilting stash, but fun and funky! The great thing about this project is you can use t-shirts that may have stains down on the lower part, because you will be cutting that off.  A new out fit can virtually be made by using what you already have in your home.  Save dresses that you as a mother no longer want, this fabric can be used to make a t-shirt dress for your little girl!

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Cut off the length that is to your liking. Make sure you get a clean straight cut.

 Then you need to run a loose basting stitch in the fabric which you will use for the skirt part of the outfit. Then you will gather the fabric.  Check out step by step instructions HERE.   I used a half yard of fabric. I would have liked it to have been more gathered, but this polo top though made of t-shirt type fabric was a bit stretchy for my optimal desired results.   

You can go ahead and hem the bottom of the fabric.

Next you will put the shirt part inside the skirt part.  The right sides of fabric need to be together with the wrong side of the skirt on the outside.  Then you will have to fit the two together and pin them in.  Some area may not fit perfectly, but you will just pin it, and sew which will make little gathered areas.

When I was done sewing a straight stitch all the way around, I went back and sewed with a zig zag stitch to stop any fraying. 

Ta-da! Isn't it cute!  I also made a little elastic belt should she want to use a belt, if not she could use it as a head band perhaps.  I will be making a few others and will post pics of those as well!  

This was not my own novel idea. As I said, my m-i-l made these for me years ago, when I was young and cute. So now I am minded in such a way that I don't want to get rid of any piece of clothing that could be re-purposed as a little dress for a young girl, or a skirt perhaps!  I did a google search on free patterns and found directions for making a pillow case sun dress. 

Check out the sweet 100% cotton pillow case that I found for one dollar. I bought it with the pillow case dress in mind!