whosies--written whatnots: Dress Shirt Conversion Tutorial

Instructions for stealing your honey's shirts and making something new out of them. Won't you follow along?

1) Without honey knowing go into the closet and pick out the shirts that he just doesn't use. Let's see...how about this work one. It has a logo above the pocket for a company he doesn't work for any more. perfect.

For this skirt i didn't just cut down the sides and such. so hold up before cutting please.
*I used the bottom hem of the shirt for the bottom hem of the skirt. This will save you some time. And it gives a swoop at the bottom too for cuteness.

*Measuring from the bottom of the skirt up to the height that you want. Jerika had pointed out where she wanted the skirt to fall, so that was easy. Cut straight across at the point.

* Now you have a large bottom cut off shirt with the buttons and panels and everything kind of crazy like.

* You now need to measure the child and see if the shirt will wrap her. You can "try" it on. Keep "trying" it on during the process to make sure you aren't too huge or too small. Sometimes measurements just don't work for me so i go more off of the eyeballing method.

* I decided to have the buttons in the front and off to the one side just a bit. That made the bottom swoop up the side...like the picture above.

* At this point I cut the left side of the shirt at the left side seam. I made sure the right side seam still was on her side. Again this is while "trying it on". Then pulled the back all the way to around her and to the front. There will be no left side seam and it will be sewn directly under the button panel. confusing, but it works.
* Then to complicate you and to make my life a little more difficult i decided to put a false button back panel. I did this so the bottom of the buttons would match up and the swoop would go where i wanted it to.

Now- you have the right side that has a finished edge with the button holes on it and then the left side that was the back of the shirt making the left side of the skirt.

* So Pull the large right side (back of the shirt) back to the front on the left side. Match up the bottom of the button panel -till you love it-- and then pin in this area, all the way down the button hole panel. Make sure that you have 3" after the matchup. This will be folded in and sewn down in the next step or so. Makes this area not so bulky.

* Take this to the sewing machine and sew. You will be sewing on top of the stitching that is already on the shirt. Sew down the farthest left side stitching line-in the pic-. I matched my thread, so no one knows nothin'

* now you have a nice stitch hiding down the front and of course this flapping thing inside.

* Take the flap and fold it in. Pin this in place. Notice how my fold is just beyond the outside stitching line on the button hole panel? It is.

* Turn it to the right sides out and sew along the farthest right stitching line. You will be catching the backside flap that you folded in. It is pinned in place so watch those pins!

Looks like this on the inside: sideways:

* Nice, fake button panel front.

* Cut the buttons off of the real button panel and sew them onto the new front.

* The hem on the bottom is already finished for you. yay

* There is only one side seam. Yay

* So now the top. You could make it easy on yourself and just fold over the top twice and stick an elastic in. Pull tight and stitch in place, or you could follow these crazy girl instructions for making a band and then still having to pull elastic and then it not looking like it was invisioned. you choose.

* Actually - this method would work if the girl fit just right the top of the skirt edges. mine did not. I continued anyways....um don't do that. If the girl is skinnier than the skirt and it just is way too large for her, add some darts. This will help take in the slack and not make such a gathery top with the elastic.

* Cut a 4" wide by the waist band length strip for the front and for the back. I did 2 pieces because the shirt didn't have a long enough piece for me to cut from. I put the skirt on the cutting mat and measured across, then added 1/2" for seam allowance.

* Sew the 2 strips together at the ends. On one end you need an opening for the elastic. So --sew a little at the top and then skip a 1 1/2" space. Then continue sewing till the end.

* Open up the seams flat and iron.

* Fold this band in half and iron.

* Lay right sides (make sure the hole for the elastic is facing the outside of the skirt when pinned, the inside of the skirt when turned into place) Pin the band to the top of the skirt making sure you line up that one side seam.

* Sew this in place. inside:

Outside:

* Iron that salvage down.

* Stick elastic in the hole and with a large safety pin attached to one end thread the elastic all the way around the skirt top. Pin the other end of the elastic to just outside of the hole so it doesn't jump in there and get lost. (my elastic is blinding yellow- but it hides, so who cares)

* Try on skirt on daughter and pull elastic to the tightness you desire. Before removing the skirt pin the two elastics together at this point. Remove skirt and sew elastics together at this pinned point. Snip the extra and tadah---magically make the elastic disapear into the waist band.

* Finished skirt on daugher: front:

Back:

*I know the waistband is a little funky looking. i thought that it was tighter to begin with than it really was. Didn't want to take band off and add darts and such. So a big gathering is what i got.