dress to skirt refashion

A friend of mine approached me about a week ago and told me she bought a dress in the children's department and wanted me to turn it into a skirt.  Intrigued and slightly disbelieving, and agreed to take a look at it.

Turns out this thin friend of mine bought matching mother/daughter dresses: one for her five-year-old, and a size 16 for herself.  Looking at the dress, it seemed like the remake wouldn't be that hard, so I dove right in.

The dress started out with this pretty doily-like bodice, which is cute on a little person, but rather matronly on an adult waistband:

The first step was to detach the lacy overlay,

then cut the bodice even with the back (approximately 3 inches above the seam at the top of the skirt.)

I then serged around the raw edge, folded it over to meet the existing seam, pinned it in place, and sewed around, leaving a gap for the elastic.

I added elastic and sewed it shut.

Start to finish, the project took about an hour and a half and I think it tuned out beautifully!

It's nice to get back to being creative!  See you soon!

Linked to:

Blue Cricket Design

coming home from the hospital - girl

The outfits I made for a little girl were a pattern of my own design.  I used cotton fabric as the bottom layer with drapery sheers for the top two layers to create a light, flowy dress.

I used green because I feel like pink is so overused for little girls.

I liked how they turned out, but I think I may end up doing some embellishing on the yoke because they look a little plain.  (I have time to play with these because I certainly won't be using them for my sweet baby boy!)

cold weather fix

Rora was given two cute Warhol Dresses for her birthday by Vivian from Craft with Confidence.

Unfortunately, when it's 20 degrees outside, and this time of year,:

this just isn't going to fly:

because it's a little chilly:

So, how do you fix that?  With a 90 Minute Shirt (and a pair of jeans or tights!):

Suddenly, we're dressed for anything!

Thanks Dana and Vivian for outfitting my little girl!

dorothy costume (simplicity 4139)

Dorothy was the final installment to out Wizard of Oz themed Halloween last year!  I used Simplicity #4139, and made Rora into the cutest little Dorothy ever!!

There were a few things I really loved about this pattern:  first, I can reuse it to make Rora into a witch (like this year,) or a princess, or a fairy with the pattern pieces they give you in this pattern.

Second, I hate when a Dorothy costume is all one piece, and you can tell from a distance.  In the movie, Judy Garland wore a shirt with a gingham jumper over the top of it.  I really dislike when the "shirt" attaches to the top of the jumper, but for a small child I can see the value in having the costume all one piece.  This pattern was the best of both worlds.

The costume was all one piece, but the only place you could tell that was on the zipper in the back because the shirt attached at the skirt, not the top of the jumper!  Hooray and huzzah!

Don't forget to check out the other characters in our Wizard of Oz Halloween: Toto, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Man!

like it's supposed to be (butterick 4176)

When I made the Bubble Dress, I was completely in love. Turns out, however, that my husband doesn't really like the bubble hem. So, as a part of cleaning out my craft space, I found some fabric that I decided to make into something more his style (ie: straight hem.)

So, once again, I used Butterick 4176, except this time I added sleeves and did a straight hem line.

It's cute, but I still think I prefer the bubble hem on this particular style.

dana's shirt dress

My sister, Vivian showed me the adorable tutorial on MADE for a little girls' summer shirt dress. Two days later, my brother-in-law brought over a whole pile of his old dress shirts to see if my husband wanted them before he donated them to the DI.

So, I snagged one of them from my husband and turned it into a shirt dress for Rora.

The most difficult part of the whole project was making my pattern. Rora is the same size as Dana's daughter, but I had the hardest time figuring out how to make the top curve of the sleeve 10", with the bottom curve measuring 14". I never did figure it out - I just ended up making the top curve of mine 7" and the bottom curve 14". (If someone can show me, I would love it!!)

Either way, I was really happy with how the dress turned out:

Rora loves it so much, I couldn't get her to hold still long enough for me to get a good picture of her in it!

bubble dress (butterick 4176)

Sometimes when I sew, I need an ego boost, so I like to finish a project in just a few hours. That's what this pattern was for me when I bought it.

Just before making it, Sarah and I were talking one day, and she said, "I saw (insert cute friend's name here)'s girls wearing the cutest bubble dresses at church on Sunday!" The wheels in my head started turning, and I decided to make this dress with a bubble hem:

I wanted to make this view without the sleeves, so I cut out a lining in my daughter's size (size 2.)

Next, I cut out my main fabric, which was a silky print from JoAnn's, from this view, except I cut the hem line all the way to a size 5, and widened the skirt area by about 20 inches.

After sewing the side seams together, I ran a gathering stitch around the hemline of my main fabric and sewed it to the lining right sides together, gathering the main fabric to fit.

I then made the rest of the dress as the directions said.

Just like any dress for a little girl, the most important quality is that it makes her feel like a million bucks, which this does for Rora!


I love the three-button detail on the front:

I also like the simple one-button back closure:

And the final perk to this little dress is that I can add a cute colored ribbon around her waist or an adorable sweater to change up the look a little bit.

This pattern gets two thumbs WAY up!

next year's dress (simplicity 3943)

I made this Easter dress for Rora this year. During the sewing process, I realized it was going to be too big for her and got discouraged. I finally finished it today (1 month later.)

Could I have altered it to fit her . . . sure, but since it was going to be 2-3 inches too big around and roughly 4 inches too long for her, I just decided to make it true to size and let her grow into it.

The sizing was no fault of Simplicity's. The dress will fit the size girl it measures to on the back of the pattern. I guess I just hoped that Rora could fit into a size 3 because those patterns are so much cuter than the toddler patterns!

simply adorable (simplicity 3510)

This was my first time using a Project Runway pattern. It took me a few minutes to get over the fact that all the fabric measurements were broken up on the back of the pattern by part of the dress (ie: bodice, skirt, pockets, etc,) but eventually, I found that it left a lot of room for creativity on my part.