Dress to Top

 Hello Readers. Spring has sprung. I am so happy to be able to wear lighter weight clothes and not need a coat anymore. Yay to warmer weather! Warm weather means pretty fun shirts and tops. I was thinking of pretty tops when I saw this hand-me-down dress. It got me thinking. I could use the boxy shape to make a cool top with a loose fit.

This dress was light weight and I loved the design along the hemline. I loved the blue color too. The dress was a little boxy and shapeless. It wasn't a terrible dress but gave me the same shape as this lamp shade here. Someone had also given me a dress just like it in off-white. It felt safe to do a refashion on this one since I had the other one intact. Let's get sewing.

I got to work cutting this pretty blue dress. The best part was the design at the hem so that is what I wanted to save. I cut it off and cut out the middle of the dress. I would not need the middle of the dress for this new top. 

I tried to figure out how long I needed my pieces to be before I cut them all up. I wanted a shorter length top to wear with jeans that had a high waist. (I didn't want a cropped length that would show my stomach. I am 48 and I have had 3 kids. My extremely pale stretch-marked tummy is my business.) When I say "cropped" I just mean shorter than a regular t-shirt. If you wanted to make a shorter or longer length just adjust your measurements to get the length you want. 

I used my sewing machine to connect the 2 pieces. It was a fast easy project. 

 

I do not have a serger. When I am sewing fabric that frays, like this blue dress, I usually use a straight stitch and then a zigzag stitch on the edge. The straight stitch makes a nice tight seam and a quick zigzag on the edge keeps the seams neat on the inside of the garment.

I was happy with how this new top turned out. This was a quick and easy project. I also had too much time on my hands and played around with the photo editing and collage making as you have seen in this post. 

Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself. 

***Chickie's Year End Review-This dress to shirt refashion was a winner for me. I liked the loose fit a lot.