Dress to Cape Jacket Refashion

You guys.

I’m going to start this post by just saying I’m super proud of this one. I think it may be one of my best refashions yet!

It all begins with this dress.

When I first saw this dress, I HATED IT.

It’s super unflattering and somehow makes me look like the kind of person who doesn’t let other people talk during HOA meetings and has strong feelings about windchimes.

Is anybody else picking up safari vibes as well?

Alas, it was only $1, so I snatched it up. Whatever I did to it would have to be an improvement, right?

Right away, I knew I wanted to turn this dress into a jacket…but not just any jacket…a cape sleeve jacket!

That’s right! I’m going to show you how to create your own jacket with cape sleeves, including how I drafted my own sleeve pattern!

First, I removed those shoulder pads that weren’t doing this dress any favors.

Then, I used my seam ripper to remove the sleeves.

I carefully put them aside, as they’ll be coming back into play later.

I knew I’d need to harvest some fabric in order to make the cape sleeves for my soon-to-be jacket. Luckily I knew exactly where to find it.

I pinned my dress where I wanted the bottom of my jacket to end, and cut off the rest.

Now for those cape sleeves!

I grabbed one of the original short sleeves from the dress and pressed it where it had been folded under.

Now that it was nice and flat, I grabbed some pattern paper and traced the shoulder part of the former sleeve onto it.

If you don’t have pattern paper, you can use parchment paper, wax paper, newspaper (Lol Just kidding. Print is dead.), or any other paper taped together to be large enough to make your sleeve pattern.

I only traced the top of the curve, as I’m not making a full sleeve.

Then, I laid that bottom scrap (folded in two) over my pattern paper and marked where it ended.

I used a straight edge to draw a line from the end of the curve of the shoulder part to the notches I made for the width of the scrap.

I made the front part of the sleeve narrower than the back part of sleeve (You’ll see why when I’m done).

I also marked the pattern piece to show the center point, that this side is for the right sleeve, and which part was the front and back of the sleeve.

I only needed one pattern piece, as the reverse of this piece will work for the left sleeve.

Feeling very much like a fancy fashion designer, I cut my freshly-drafted pattern piece out.

Just to be on the safe side, I pinned my pattern piece on my dress form with my future jacket to make sure I liked it so far.

Then, I laid it over my bottom scrap and pinned it down.

Since the scrap is folded in half, I can just make one cut to get the two sleeve pieces (the bottom one is automatically going to be the reverse of the top).

I cut around my pattern piece.

I marked my right sleeve and left sleeves with tailor’s chalk.

I didn’t need to add a bottom hem, since I incorporated the original hem of the dress into the sleeves.

I couldn’t leave the edges of my future cape sleeves a raw unraveling mess, so I grabbed some bias tape…

…and sewed it to the sides of each sleeve!

You can see I’m not using pins for this, as they actually make this part more difficult and messy than not using them.

I sewed slowly and carefully, making sure the raw edge was securely tucked between the two sides of the tape.

Here’s what my sleeves looked like when I was done.

You can I didn’t add bias tape to the top part of my sleeves where they’re going to be connected to the shoulder. That’s to make sure I’m not adding any bulk there when the sleeve is attached.

I folded the bias-taped edges under and pinned them in place.

Then, I sewed the edge down.

Here’s a closer look:

I pinned my sleeves to the body of my new jacket, and began to get prrrrretty excited.

From the top shoulder, I pinned about 5″ to the front and 6″ to the back. In other words, the sleeves don’t go all the way around (They’re not supposed to! It’s okay!).

You can see how I pinned it with the jacket and sleeve turned inside-out.

To sew it in place, I tucked the sleeve inside the body of the jacket, and carefully stitched it down.

The areas below the sleeves (the armpit area) were still open and raw, so I pinned them under and sewed them down.

Now that my sleeves were done, I just needed to give my jacket a new hem!

I folded it under twice (1.25″ to match the sleeve hems).

Next, I giddily stitched my new hem down!

Now for something unprecedented in the history of this blog!

I know some of you are going to be taken aback, but I reattached the original shoulder pads!

That’s right! While the shoulder pads looked pretty terrible in the original dress, the jacket really needed a little shoulder definition and these definitely fit the bill!

I pressed everything, including the shoulders and new hem, and stood back to bask in just how awesome my new cape jacket was!

I styled my new cape jacket with a basic black long-sleeve T-shirt, jeans, big earrings, a brunette pixie wig, and a pair of leopard print booties.

I am just so so SO thrilled with this piece.

You might also like this dress to blazer refashion!
This military-style jacket refashion (from a dress) is pretty swell too!
You can even refashion a lightweight dress into a jacket!

This is a jacket I know I’ll get tons of wears out of, as it works with practically everything.

I hope this upcycle tutorial inspires you to give those boring button-down dresses at the thrift store a second look!

I think this refashion would look amazing in a bold print, as well as the neutral khaki I used here.

Cheers!