Make It - a t-shirt dress by Typical 90's Child

It's a guest post day. Today Alex of Typical 90's Child is sharing how to turn a t-shirt into a dress. Alex sells vintage clothing as well as custom vintage inspired clothing. Stop by her shop and check out all the fun stuff she has to offer.


  I realize that this is a photo heavy post, and a lot of explaining will go with the pics, but honestly, it's such a quick and easy DIY that anyone who can do a simple straight stitch could easily make this!

All you will need are two men's shirts (I used XL ones), some lace or whatever else you would like to use to embellish it and a dress that you like the fit.



1. Fold both your dress and one of the T-shirts in half, lay the folded edges on top of each other and cut around the silhouette of your dress leaving some room for stitching. In the second picture you can see how I folded the sleeve along the seem to know where to cut my T-shirt.





2. At this point you should have something like this, turn it inside out and stitch the sides up (I know this is common sense, but just in case...leave the armholes open!)



3. Grab the original T-shirt sleeve that you cut off earlier, and take it in, one side should be the width of the arm opening, and the other should comfortably fit around your own arm.



4. If you've never done sleeves before, don't worry! Just pay attention and you'll be fine :)   Turn your T-shirt-dress inside out, but keep your sleeve the right side out. Insert your sleeve through the armhole, with the smaller part (sleeve cuff) going in first. Once inside, align the ends of seems A and B.



5. Attach the sleeve to the dress and stitch all the way around. Repeat process for other sleeve.



6. Normally I would cut open the neck a bit more, but I wanted to keep this one as simple as possible, so I just gathered my lace and attached it right below the existing collar.

I don't have a picture of that, but this is the best close up I have of it.



7. Now, you should have this, it's cute, but a bit plain...and incredibly short!



8. Time to get out the second T-shirt, and cut two even strips out of the middle. Discard the bottom hem of the shirt (I forgot to show this in the picture).



9. You will now have two circles of fabric, cut each piece only once as shown with the green line. This will give you 2 long strips of fabric, attach the two together, and gather lengthwise until they are the same width as the bottom of your dress.



10. Lay your gathered trim upside down, with the right sides together right above the existing hem of the T-shirt dress. Stitch it on, fold the ruffled edge down and enjoy!!! (I adjusted the exposure on this pic so you can see the black on black a bit better)



This is the finished dress, I haven't gotten much use out of it yet, but now that it's starting to get hotter here in San Diego, I know I'll be wearing it often. Because it's made out of a T-shirt, it's super comfy and makes you feel like you actually put in a little effort in the morning for those days that you just don't want to :)





I really hope some of you give this a go, if you do I'd love to see the end result! As always, if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask, you can either leave it in a comment below or e-mail me.

xoxo
Alex

Typical 90's Child - Storenvy
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