Easy Refashion DIY Tutorial: Dress --> Separates

When my t-shirt dress shrank from slightly above the knee to slightly below my butt, I groaned at my laundering (in)capabilities.  Too long to be a shirt, too short to be a dress, I decided to chop it in half to create a tee for me and a skirt for E - whee! Sorry for cheesy rhyming, but I couldn't resist.  Our current bedtime story rotation consists of Dr. Seuss books.

Dress --> Tee + Toddler Skirt

Difficulty: Easy

Time: ~1 hr

Materials:

• Existing dress
• Elastic for waistband
• Optional - serger, twin needle

What I did:
1.) Try on your dress and mark how long you'd like your shirt to be.  Add on ~1" to allow for hemming.

2.) Cut your dress at your desired length (marked in Step 1).

3.) Skirt - We'll start with the elastic waistband.  To join your elastic ends together, I typically sew and backstitch 2 rows of zigzags.

 4.) If you have a serger,  go ahead and serge your elastic band to the waist of your skirt.  This prevents your elastic band from flipping around in the casing.

ALTERNATIVELY, for regular sewing machines, fold the waist over the elastic band to create a casing and stitch along the bottom.  To prevent elastic flipping, you can stitch / backstitch / stitch with matching thread along the side seams to hold it in place.  I usually go 3 forward, 3 back, and 3 forward to secure.  Go ahead and skip to Step 8.

5.) Fold the elastic waist over into the skirt interior.  Add a few pins to keep it in place.

 6.) Sew along the bottom to anchor and hide your elastic.

7.) Finished skirt:

8.) For the top, all you have to do is hem it!  I folded the hem inwards and then used a twin needle and navy blue thread to sew along the navy stripe.

9.) Iron the seams of both garments and you're finished!

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