Repurposing clothes is a new obsession of mine. I started when my boyfriend gave me a shirt that he did not want anymore. I had a ton of extra material that I was also trying to figure out how to use. So I decided that I would try to make a dress out of the shirt since I wanted a cute little tennis style dress. 

I would like to point out that I did not have a plan for this shirt dress. It was more of an experiment that I expected to go wrong. So I do apologize that I do not have many pictures of the process, only of the mostly finished to finished garment. I wish I could have at least taken some pictures of the process. I guess we will have to use our mind pictures to envision what I am describing. I promise to do better in the future!

First I cut the sides of the shirt and made new arm holes that would fit my frame. I used a dress shirt pattern that I had been using for a different shirt to make sure that I would be the chest dart correct. When you are using a men’s shirt and converting it to a women’s dress, you definitely need to make sure you are accounting for the difference in the chest and hip area. If you don’t, then you are going to have to leave several buttons open to accommodate a larger chest which may not be (usually never) in the men’s shirt. I know my boyfriend's shirt is a straight line from the armpit to the bottom hem. Not very accommodating for the amount of curves I have. So, when you cut the sides, make sure you leave a little room for any darts you may want. I did not do that for this shirt because this was my first attempt at the repurpose. As you can see from the picture below, I did put in a dart for the chest. This is also where I think I made a bit of an error that I will get to in just a bit. 

Next, I took apart the back yoke of the shirt to get rid of the pleat that men’s shirts usually have there. I did not need to do this, but I also did not want the shirt to look baggy in the back. You can still see the echoes of that pleat in the back which I have attempted to iron out.  I smoothed out the pleat and put the yoke back on. This was a good call I think, but there are other ways you can adjust the shirt back and use the pleat to create a dart. I will talk more about that in the next post I plan to have about repurposing a men’s shirt. I did put a dart in the middle of the shirt. This allows a nice close fit for the drop waist I created. I could have added two darts to each side along the spine, but I figured I could use the lines from the former pleat. It is a little off center, but who is going to know that now but you?

Now we come to the part where I made an error. Since I created a chest dart, I did not accommodate for the inches I may lose at the bottom of the shirt. Remember that creating a dart in the chest area will allow the fabric to drape over your chest. It will no longer be a straight line down the front. This is not something I thought about when cutting the bottom of the shirt. So I had to sew on a bit of the shirt again after I already cut it off. This should be a warning to you all - measure 5 times, cut once. The end detail actually looks like I did it on purpose which is good. But I can also cover that part up with a slim belt. Either way, I have gotten great compliments about the detail. The error turned out to be a real cute detail that everyone thought I did on purpose. So, let’s keep this between you and me shall we?

This little dress has a drop waist design that I think looks really good on my frame. I decided to go with some excess fabric I had that I could make little pleats instead of gathering the material. I didn’t want it too poofy around my bottom bits. I think this was the most frustrating part since I had to then space out the pleating and figure out how much pleating was needed. I found several formulas online to help with this, but they never turned out right for the amount of fabric I had. I also thought I had all the folds in the right direction from the bottom front. I did not so instead I have one box pleat. No one has noticed that thus far, so please try not to point it out to everyone if you can. This is something to think about in the future if I go with this design in the future. 

The floral pattern for the skirt was laid in a purposeful way as well. You can see that the floral pattern goes from tiny flowers to large from the top to the bottom of the skirt. The shirt is a light blue and I think doing it this way you do not notice the difference in the blue shades as much. When I placed the fabric in a few different ways, the slightly different blue hues clashed just a bit. I also took the pocket off the front chest area and relocated it on the skirt. It is in the best place for me to put my phone or keys to my office. I absolutely love pockets on skirts!

When I added the sleeves back on, I used the original sleeves, but I just made them shorter and with a little puff. I may try to do a tulip sleeve another time, but the mini puff seems to go with this dress. It was not too hard to measure the short sleeve out either. I did have to make an adjustment to the cut after I saw I had a strange angle making the armpit side longer. That was an easy fix to make after seeing it in the mirror. 

This was a great experiment that turned out very well. I wear this dress all the time during the summer. It breathes well since it is cotton, and I feel very good about putting life back into a shirt that may have been tossed out due to unfortunate stains that could not be lifted. There is also a small hole I still need to patch over. I recently found a very cute heart patch that will go well in that place. Once I find the heart again (it was wee and I misplaced it in my sewing room), I will update the pictures to include that. 

Lessons learned:

• Measure before you cut the bottom of the shirt off. You may want to wait for that part until after the chest darts have been created. This way you can have a more even and accurate bottom hem. 

• Face pleats and folds in the same direction prior to sewing them onto the shirt. Try not to create a random box pleat if you can. Unless you want to, then random away. 

• Figure out the center of the back before creating an off center dart.