Reconstructed Shirt to Sundress

Something I love to do is to reconstruct old things into something new. Remember my tutorial on reconstructing sweatshirts into pillows? (Click here for it) Here, I'll show you how to reconstruct a blouse into a sundress. I picked up the shirt for $3.99 at Goodwill. The fabric was a pique shirt, which I've noticed gave the photographs a weird reflection. I apologize for that.
When looking for a shirt, try to find one that's big, or you will be limited on what you can do for it. This one was an XL and I was able to make a sundress that fit me, even after removing the button placket.

Here's the shirt:

From Reconstructed Shirt to Dress

1. After washing and pressing the shirt, I removed the front pocket using a seam ripper.

From Reconstructed Shirt to Dress

2. Then, I removed the arms. If you'd like, you can use a seam ripper to do this. I chose to just cut them off with a pair of scissors.

From Reconstructed Shirt to Dress

3. I cut the shirt just under the armholes. The top part will become the bodice of my dress and the bottom will be used to make the skirt.

From Reconstructed Shirt to Dress

4. I removed the collar and then cut the shoulders off as close to the collar as possible.

From Reconstructed Shirt to Dress

5. To make the bodice, I cut off the arm seams and squared up the front and the back pieces. Then, I removed the buttons and cut off the button placket. I sewed right and left halves together where the button placket originally existed.

From Reconstructed Shirt to Dress

I sewed the front of the shirt to the back of the shirt, forming a tube for the bodice. The original front of the shirt is now the back of the dress because of the seam. There are now three seams in the bodice : 2 side seams and the back seam where the button placket was located.

6. To make the skirt, I squared up the bottom half of the shirt. Then, I removed the placket in the same way as I did for the bodice. Like as the bodice, I sewed the front half to the back half, forming a tube for the skirt. There are 3 seams like the bodice, and the original button placket location forms the back seam.

From Reconstructed Shirt to Dress

7. Then, I sewed the skirt to the bodice, lining up the back seams, and gathering the skirt to the bodice.

From Reconstructed Shirt to Dress

8. I cut strips from the arms to make a ruffle for the bottom of the skirt.

From Reconstructed Shirt to Dress

9. On the bodice, I made a 5/8" casing for elastic.

From Reconstructed Shirt to Dress

10. Then, I inserted a 1/2" elastic band, which was about an inch smaller than my bust measurement.

From Reconstructed Shirt to Dress

11. Where the bodice meets the skirt, I added three rows of smocking, using elastic bobbin thread. (See my Smocking Tutorial, How to Smock
)

From Reconstructed Shirt to Dress

From Reconstructed Shirt to Dress

Ta-da! Here it is! Ignore my white legs - it's still winter here!

From Reconstructed Shirt to Dress

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