I love a comfy shirt dress. But this Mens’ 2XL shirt I thrifted for $1 wasn’t quite working for me.
I was looking forward to catching Love, Loss, and What I Wore at Trustus Theatre….but I couldn’t very well show up to a play about fashion looking like this!
The length of this shirt would work nicely as a dress, but I had a lot of work to do!
First, I cut a bit off the sleeves.
Then, I pinned the sides to take them in.
You can see how my plan was to keep the sleeves full and kimono-y.
I stitched the sides down, like ya do.
Then, I cut off the extra fabric with my pinking shears.
By now you guys know I have a thing for sashes. I think they look nice and polished. They’re the easiest way to cinch the waist of an otherwise frumpy dress.
But today, I’m going to show you another way!
I still had a teensy bit of elastic from a fitted bed sheet I used to make a toga months ago.
I wrapped it around my waist and snipped it so it would fit nice & snug.
Then, I stitched the two ends together.
I folded my new elastic O in 1/4s and added a small mark to the end of each 1/4.
With my dress still inside-out, I decided where I wanted the waist of my new dress to be, and I drew a dotted line all the way around it with tailor’s chalk.
Now I have a guide for where I want the elastic to go.
Remember those 4 marks I made on the elastic?
They’re going to help me add the elastic evenly, without any awkward bunching. I pinned the elastic to the center front, center, back, and each side on the dotted line of my new dress…using those 4 marks as my guides.
Now it gets a little finicky.
I lightly stretched the elastic, and gathered the fabric of my dress just a little as I pinned the elastic to the dotted line.
I stitched the elastic down using a straight stitch.
The feed dogs on your machine will stretch the elastic a little, and I stretched it a little more as I sewed it down.
When I tried my dress on, I wasn’t happy with the fit. It was just way toooooo blousy still. No worries!
I tossed it on my dress form and did a little more fine-tuning.
I took in the sides (again), sewing right over that elastic.
I noticed that even after using pinking shears to cut off the extra fabric before, those edges were still fraying like crazy! So, I used this little guy to help keep things under control:
I’m almost done!
In order to wear this as a proper dress and not flash my lady parts at everyone, I stitched the bottom of the front placket down.
I’m sooooo close to being done with this one, you guys! 🙂
All that was left to do was to hem those sleeves I cut off in the beginning.
Check out that oversized shirt now!
I styled my new frock with my favorite brown boots, orange tights, and my Cindy Saad sterling sculpture necklace. 🙂
I enjoyed pre-theatre noms with my friend, Amauri. 🙂
I really enjoyed the show and will post a link to my review right here as soon as I finish writing it. 🙂
It was fun catching up the the show’s director, Larry Hembree. 🙂
I even scored a sweet painting by Lauren Maurer, who was selling her work in the lobby!
Such a fun & fashionable evening!
Cheers!
