Dress from Two Dress Shirts

Dress from Two Dress Shirts

Adorable dress by Krista. Picture from this post.

When I saw this dress (here) on Krista's blog Lazy Saturdays I knew that I wanted to make it. So off I went to Salvation Army to get some dress shirts to attempt to replicate it. Here's the result.

I think that it turned out pretty well, don't you? If you want to make the dress, read on!

Disclaimer: I am a novice sewer. The last time I sewed a garment using a machine was when I sewed pajama pants for my siblings for Christmas when I was eight or nine. I don't know the terminology and I don't know the techniques, so a lot of the tutorial will be in abstract terms as opposed to concrete measures and instructions. That being said, I successfully completed the whole dress in one day (plus a little... I started it Tuesday night, got in a fight with the sewing machine and put it down until 5ish Wednesday night. Only a little bit of the cutting got done on Tuesday.), so you definitely can!
MATERIALS
- One large dress shirt (mine was a men's XXL)
- One dress shirt that fits you well through the bust

THE SKIRT
1. Start by cutting the collar and sleeves off of the large dress shirt.

2. Cut into the side seam from the arm. I cut about 7 cm down. This is to help get rid of the weird pointy hip thing that happened the first time I tried to sew the pocket.

3. Cut off the triangles that have been formed by the last cut you made.
4. Trace the line of the pocket onto a piece of paper and free hand the shape you want your pocket to be.

5. Cut four of the pocket shapes out of one of the sleeves you cut off.

6. Put the pocket piece on the shirt with right sides together and sew the top with a straight stitch.
7. Repeat with the three other pocket pieces.
8. Take the two pocket pieces that will make one pocket and pin them together with right sides together.
9. Sew them together with a straight stitch.
10. Repeat on the other side
11. Sew a basting stitch across the top of the whole skirt
12. Gather the material so the skirt will fit your waist

13. Once you have the gathers where you want them, sew in place with a straight stitch. Be careful not to get your pocket caught like I did - it sucks to unpick the whole thing and fix it, especially since your gathers will be all messed up and you'll have to do the whole thing again.

THE TOP
1. Put on the shirt
2. Wrap the skirt around your waist and mark where you want the skirt to attach to the shirt
3. Cut about 1/2' down from your line (for seam allowance)

THE DRESS
1. Pin the top and the skirt together. Make sure you get the buttons and the seams to line up. It'll make life easier.

2. Sew together with a straight stitch.

THE END

You did it! Try on your dress and then be proud of yourself. You just made an awesome new dress and you did it on the cheap.
~Robin

(If the pocket bit in the skirt is confusing check out this post by See Kate Sew. That's what I looked at to help me figure out how to do the pockets (although I did end up modifying it slightly).)