Quick n’ Dirty

Our summer days are quickly filling up with activities and fun! A little late in coming, but here’s what we did during our memorial weekend-turned-week-long-vacation-at-my-parent’s-house:

Attended a wedding and spent time with some old friends:

Painted our nails for the first time ever!

Did some upcycling…

Made a new dress and took pictures of the kids…

And finally, finally succeeded in making a (matching) top for myself. You have no idea how many hours and fabric I sacrificed to reach this point… oh, and I also realized how difficult, awkward, and depressing it is to have to model something yourself. Almost as bad as shopping for a bathing suit… I must say, Charissa is much better at this than I am! (And thanks to my little sis for taking pictures!)

And now, for my quick n’ dirty tutorial of “The Boardwalk T-Dress” - an easy peasy way to upcycle a free career-fair t-shirt that your boyfriend or husband just can’t seem to let go, or any t-shirt for that matter! And the best part is, there’s no need to serge or zig-zag raw edges because jersey doesn’t fray! Yay!

You will need:

• a t-shirt
• a ball-point needle, not necessary for constructing the dress, but quite so for your sanity’s sake in working with knits!
• scissors or rotary cutter and mat
• paper, scissors, ruler, and a pen
• a tank top in your child’s size



1. Fold a piece of paper in half, and using the tank top as a reference, trace half of the tank along the fold, creating your pattern.

2. Get your t-shirt.

3. Turn your t-shirt inside out and place your pattern on top.

4. Trace your pattern onto the t-shirt.

5 and 6. Using a ruler, extend both sides to the desired length (for my 3 year old, I extended it 11″ down from the bottom of the armpit).

7. Cut the t-shirt along the lines. With right sides together (as it already is since the shirt was turned inside out!), sew together the sides. You now have a tank dress!

8. Take the bottom of the t-shirt and cut off a strip (mine measured 5 inches wide).

9. With your sewing machine stitch length set to the longest and tension set to the highest, sew around the length of the strip, 1/4″ to 1/2″ from the raw edge. You now have a ruffled band.

10. Adjust the ruffles so that the length of the band is the same as the bottom of your tank dress.

11. With right-sides out, place the ruffled band slightly over the bottom of your tank dress and pin in place (optional. I don’t do this, I place as I sew).

12. Straight-stitch the bottom band to the tank dress. Almost done! Cut two strips from what remains of your t-shirt and tie them to the shoulders to make bows (refer to the initial/finished product pictures). You can also cut another strip and tie the two tank straps together in the back if the straps lay too wide on your girl’s shoulders… or just to add a touch of cuteness

Tags: Kids, Sewing, Upcycle

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Life, Sew Happy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.