Men's Shirt to sundress

I picked up an XL men's shirt at a garage sale.  I liked the yellow stripe and knew it had potential.  I didn't even cut the sides, I just used the width that came.  I also left the hem on the bottom.  So basically, all I had to do was cut off the sleeves and collar, use elastic thread to gather up the bodice, transfer a few buttons to the bottom, sew the sides of the bodice, and add some straps.  Easy peasy!  I had it done in under an hour.  With a dress this inexpensive and easy, I don't care where and when she wears it!  Jacob says it's his favorite so far.

I've learned some things as I've made these.  One:  if you look on the internet, people will tell you to hand wind the elastic thread onto the bobbin.  I don't.  I pull a bunch of slack off the spool of elastic thread and making sure there is no tension on the thread as it goes in to the bobbin, I let my machine do the work of winding. 

Two:  I didn't like the look at the very top of the dress.  For some reason, the elastic thread doesn't gather in tight when it's going through two thicknesses of material.  That makes the top loose and it folds down to show my stitching.

There is always two thicknesses on the top due to folding it over for a finished edge. For this dress, I fed a thin piece of elastic through the casing left by turning over the top. I measured around Miriam and put 1/2 her chest measurement in the front and half in the back. I sewed the edges of the casing making sure to keep the elastic stretched to the correct size, before sewing up the bodice edges and eliminated the gaping  top. Woo-hoo!

I picked up some more shirts today to turn in to dresses that I'm really excited about.  I love shirts that have some sort of embellishment on them.  They make the dresses really cute.  I'm also thinking of trying to turn a man's shirt into a skirt for the bigger girls, with lines of elastic thread to make shirring at the top.  I'm also beginning to totally drool over smocking but don't have the tools to do it.

And, today I went through my t-shirts and tried each one on inside out.  The ones that were baggy got pinned up the sides and I gave them a quick seam up each side to make them more flattering.  This opens up a whole new area of the 2nd hand store for me because as long as it's too big and not too small, I can make any top there fit me.  I can get a few to take on our trip and if they get stained while camping, who cares when  they're $1 each.