Easy Fall Baby Dress - a Refashion & Tutorial

Here's a super easy idea on how to make a fall dress from a women's top.  I stated this project with a three-fourths length sleeve, Banana Republic women's shirt.  Below my granddaughter is modeling the top before I refashioned it.  Don't you think, it's so stylish over her pajamas?

I'm going to use this tutorial to show you how to turn a women's top into a baby or toddler dress:

From the shirt you're going to refashion, cut off the sleeves and set aside.  

1. Fold the shirt you are going to refashion in half & lay on top of that shirt a shirt that fits your child.
2. Use pins to mark where the arm hole needs to be.
3. Cut out the armholes where you marked them.
4. Pin the shoulder seams and the side seams.
5. Sew the shoulder seams and the side seams.
6. Pin the arch of the sleeves.
7. Cut the arch of the sleeve out where you pinned it.
8. Even up the sleeve seam so that it's straight.
9. Turn the dress right side out.
10. Sew the sleeve seam.
11. Pin the sleeve to the arm hole and sew.

That's it, your dress should be finished.  If the dress is too long, you can cut off part of the hem.  On the navy dress, I used two stripes of the hem which were 2" wide, sewed them together to make one large ruffle along the bottom of the dress.  I think Banana Republic should have a line of children's clothes, what do you think?  This shirt turned into one adorable Fall dress with very little effort.

Styling her new Fall dress with her new peacoat.  (To see more photos of this peacoat, go HERE.) I know I've said it before, but isn't she so cute in her new Fall dress?

Two lessons learned from making a dress like this:

1. If the child is still in diapers, make the back of the dress a little longer.
2. If you want to take photos of one of your grand daughters in something you've made, do not attempt to do this right after their parents return from a week without said grand daughter.  It  will result in plenty of tears, maybe a tantrum especially if that child is a two year old and no photos of the plum dress on this child.  (That is what I tried with the plum dress & it was a disaster.)

xoxo Grandma
Linked to: Nap Time Creations, Threading My Way, Creating My Way to Success, Lou Lou Girls, Crafty Allie, The Dedicated House