Tank Top Dress

Like I mentioned before, I have a lot of shirts that I love but are just too short. I've already combined two shirts into one and was looking for a new way to reuse my shirts. The idea came as the result of an utter failure: I had purchased a yard of fabric for a shirt idea, but I could tell by stitch number 2 that it wasn't going to work out.


So, what can a girl do with a tank top and a yard of fabric…
...time to up the ante and make a dress!


As I mentioned with Frankenstein Shirts, I don't own fancy things like chalk. But, thankfully, yellow crayon works in a pinch. I put on my shirt, marked where I wanted the dress portion to come up to, and cut about an inch below the line.


The best way to pin is the way I pinned my Frankenstein shirt: with the shirt rightside-out, lay what will be the top edge of the dress over the bottom edge of the tank top and pin along the bottom, alongside the line created with yellow crayon. After taking this picture and realizing my mistake, I unpinned everything and pinned in that exact fashion.


Much to my chagrin, I realize I have cut/pinned everything at a very noticeable slant. Instead of getting upset and undoing the seam, I decided to work with it, since, at the end of the day, it looks downright intentional. Plus, the slant helped me figure out an idea as to what to do with the other side of the dress.


I was worried about how to go about the second portion of the dress. I couldn't sew a straight seem down, lest my hips burst through, and, after the crooked seam fiasco, I didn't trust myself to cut and sew in curves. So, while wearing the dress, I used baby pins to map out where the dress would go around my hips and legs. I cut the dress to length and hemmed the bottom (which, as I mention with the Frankenstein shirt, I absolutely hate doing, but there was no way around it this time) from end to end, and sewed up the side right after.


I decided to take some of the fabric left over from cutting the dress to length and make a bow, which was as simple as making two bunny ears and tying them into a knot (hello, Kindergarten).


I used baby pins to pin the bow in place (using this opportunity to cinch any loose fabric into the folds behind the bow) and sewed the bow onto the dress along the edge of the bow loops.


I'm really happy about this dress. I got to wear it to my sister-in-law's graduation. The best was that someone complimented on my dress and asked me where I got it. Oh, this thing? Y'know, from H&M and Joanne Fabrics … didn't you hear they were collaborating?