Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Things to Make: Repurposed T-Shirt Dress #3



Remember last week, when I mentioned that I'd show you what happened to the rest of the green shirt used for the project found here?



Well, today's your lucky day!

When my grandma learned that I had been taking old clothes and remaking them into new ones, she brought over some great pieces to 'play' with. One of them was this:


It's a large, rainbow plaid, seersucker, women's house coat. I know. Someone had given to my grandma as a thank you gift...and she, of course, never wore it. The fabric was in excellent condition. (Probably because no sane person would ever have worn it. Sorry. It works for a little girl...but not a grown woman.)

So here's what I did with it!

I cut the bottom off of the house coat of many colors, and gathered it. (It has snap buttons down the front, and enormous square pockets.) Then I turned it inside out.


Then I took the top half of the larger shirt, from this project, turned it and pinned them together.


Then I stitched the two together.


Next I cut the collar off of the house coat, sewed up the cut seam, and turned it inside out. Then I twisted and pinned the tube into a pinwheel flower. Lastly I sewed it all together with a couple of grosgrain ribbon 'leaves'.



I also sewed a couple long lengths of the same grosgrain ribbon to the back of the dress for ties. (Do you know the trick to keeping ribbon from unraveling? Hold a match or lighter up to the cut edge, and melt it! Awesome!)


Lastly I sewed the pinwheel flower to the front of the dress.


And, voila!


When my daughter came home from school and saw the rainbow fabric, and the dress, she gasped and said, "That is so beautiful!" When I told her it was for her, I thought she would explode from excitement! (One of her notorious quirks is that she can never have too much color in her clothing! She loves to pair pink floral leggings with a bright blue striped shirt, and orange socks! "Matching is boring!" is her motto...I think this dress is just enough matching for me, and just enough color for her! Perfect!"


(*****After these pics had been taken I also added a little of the rainbow plaid fabric across the neckline in front, under the collar seam...my daughter felt it was too loose.*****)


Image and video hosting by TinyPic