WFMW – Adorable Girl’s T Shirt Dress In Less Than An Hour!

August 17, 2010

You are going to love this post for Works For Me Wednesday! If you have little girls that love to wear dresses, then pull up a sewing machine and let’s make a Girl’s T Shirt Dress!

All you need is a t-shirt (you know, the one with the stain at the bottom that you keep meaning to treat!) and some matching fabric (beside your normal sewing notions).

I don’t use any mathematical formulas to measure and cut the dress. I just have my girl put on the t-shirt and make a mark for where I want to cut the bottom off – usually an inch or so below the bust line with a little extra for seam allowance.

Take the shirt off and cut to length.

Then, you’ll need to figure out how long the fabric should be. To do this, I usually pull out a dress that fits my daughter nicely and lay it on my table. Lay the cut-off t-shirt over the top of the dress. The length from the end of the t-shirt to the end of the dress is what you want to measure, just add a little extra to sew the hem.

For the width of the fabric, make sure you have enough to wrap around her body, plus extra for the gathers and seam allowance. If your fabric is a little on the stiff side, you won’t want too many gathers. If it is a nice, soft, flowy fabric, I like a little bit extra gathering. You can wrap the fabric around her and estimate or match it up to a dress that has gathers in it already. If you are using a store-bought dress, just pull the skirt part taut and match up your fabric. (Remember, the dress is two layers, front and back. Make sure you fold your fabric in half to mimic the layers so you have enough.)

Real scientific, I know! But, too many mathematical equations give me hives.

Now you know the length and width to cut your fabric. When you are done cutting, you should have a nice rectangle (or square for smaller girls). Fold your rectangle in half length-wise, right sides together and sew from top to bottom. Then, sew up the hem.

Finally, you are ready to attach the top to the bottom!

First, sew in the thread to pull the gathers. If you’ve never done gathers before, it’s so much easier than you might think. Set your sewing machine to stitch the longest and the loosest stitch possible. Sew along the top edge of the skirt fabric, in about 1/2 inch from the top edge. Sew another line about 1/4 inch below the first line. When you are done sewing each line, make sure to pull quite a length of thread from the machine before cutting your fabric free.

Before I start to pull the gathers, I like to tie the ends of my lines together so that I don’t just pull the thread all the way out of the dress! So, tie the end of line A to the end of line B. (Don’t tie the end of line A to the beginning of line A or it won’t pull for the gathers.)

When you first start pulling, you might feel like the thread will break. Be careful, but keep going. If one thread does break, you might be able to keep going with the other thread.

Pull a little, then distribute the fabric across the thread. Then, pull a little more and redistribute. Keep doing it that way rather than just pulling one big mass of fabric. The big mass makes it easier to break a thread and harder to make sure you are getting the right size for the finished product. As you create your gathers, hold the skirt fabric up to the t-shirt occasionally to make sure you haven’t pulled too much.

Once the skirt fabric is the same width as the t-shirt, tie off your threads to hold it in place. Match up the t-shirt bottom with the top of the skirt fabric, right sides together. (I usually turn the skirt fabric inside out and put the t-shirt, right side out, inside it and match the ends.)

Make sure you line up the one skirt seam where you would like it in relation to the t-shirt. I like mine to match up to one of the seams under the arm, if there is one. Otherwise, you can put the seam exactly in the back. I suppose you could do it exactly in the front, too! Be daring!

Pin your fabric to the t-shirt and start sewing!

(The saddest part about the gathering instructions I just gave you is that I actually have a serger with a gathering foot on it. If I could ever figure out how to use the dumb thing, it might save me some time!!)

Flip the dress right side out and admire your handiwork. Make sure to look at the clock in amazement at how quickly you got it finished!

(P.S. If she wants puffed sleeves or if your t-shirt is a little too big in the arms and shoulders, they actually aren’t that hard to make right from the t-shirt you have. But, that will have to be next week’s Works For Me Wednesday!)