While cleaning the closet the other day, I realized that there are so many oversized shirts of my husband that he does not wear. I decided to convert his shirt into a dress so that my kids could wear them. You can easily convert your husband’s dress shirt into a cute-bow mini dress for an adorable look. The Cotton material is just perfect to convert as it does not need any lining while making a dress. Men’s dress shirt is easy to sew and the crisp medium-weight poplin is a durable material to make a nice dress.
With the DIY ideas you can easily make a dress from your husband’s shirt. For this you will need:
1. One Men’s shirt
2. Simple Non-stretch dress (for sizing)
3. Sewing Machine
4. Tracing or Baking paper.
5. Matching thread for stitching.
6. Pair of scissors.
To start making Shirt into dress, follow the steps mentioned below:-
1. To make a dress, you need to take its measurement. For this, take a non-stretch dress and keep it flat on a tracing paper on the table. Outline the dress on the tracing paper and cut it.
2. Keep the shirt flat on the table. Slowly cut off the arms and collar and safely remove the pockets.
3. Keep the tracing paper on the remaining part of the shirt, keeping in line up with the buttons in such a way that they form the front part of the dress. Keep ¾ inch seam allowance. Pin it to the shirt and cut around the tracing paper.
4. Keep the right sides together, carefully pin and sew the side seams and shoulders. Slowly iron the seams flat.
5. Try this dress on your cute daughter and check if the size is right. With the help of pinking shears tidy up all the seams.
6. Crop all around the neck holes and armholes. For a neat edge, press the cropped fabric out in the wrong side of the fabric. Slowly pin it up and sew 5 mm away from the edge.
7. Cleanly cut off the excess fabric with the scissors.
8. For making ruffle sleeves, measure the top of the armhole the exact length you need the sleeve to be (i.e. from top seam about ½ way down on each side)
9. On a paper, draw a line after measuring double the length of this measurement. From the center of this line measure about 7 cms to get the length of the sleeve. Join it up to form a curve to each end of the line. Carefully fold and press the seam along the curved edges. On the inside of the dress, slowly pin it to the center of the sleeve to the top of the armhole. For the formation of ruffles, fold over a small portion and pin again nicely to give a clean finish. Finally, sew the sleeve onto the dress.
10. Finally, you did it. Your dress is ready. You can make such a beautiful dress for your lovely daughter. Remove all the shirts from your husband’s wardrobe that he no longer wears. Let him fill it with new shirts.