My kiddo wanted to dress to impress for her birthday party at pre-school and oh-so-politely asked that I make her something “bootiful and vewy strong”.
I puzzled over her vague request for a bit and came up with this:
A cotton & tulle dress with the strength of a pirate!
(the plastic dress-up box shoes were selected & styled by the munchkin but did not make final approval to be worn to pre-school)
Here’s how it quickly came together + another refashionista mistake that I make far too often:
I grabbed a too-small fancy dress, a coordinating t-shirt & a plain headband.
Removed the flower embellishment and chopped the skirt from the dress.
*if your fancy dress doesn’t have a tulle overskirt simply create one from some sheer fabric or lace
Stitched the tulle to the skirt fabric.
Chopped the t-shirt in half. (This creates the empire waistline of the dress)
Popped the t-shirt into the skirt with right sides facing and raw edges lined up then gathered & pinned the skirt fabric to match up with the width of the t-shirt.
Zigzagged together.
Chopped off the excess fabric.
Flipped it right side out, realized I had stitched the wrong sides together, kicked my own ass, cut it apart and started from the beginning again.
Once it was correctly sewn together I replaced the printed on t-shirt label with a funky pirate patch using my oldie but goodie video tutorial:
Then grabbed that flower embellishment I had removed from the original fancy dress
and glued it onto the headband.
et voila! The perfect accessory for a polka dot tulle pirate dress!
I am jealous of her beautiful blue slip ons. And I notice she likes that European socks with shoes style. Love the dress refash too +++
Another gorgeous creation. Pretty, comfy to wear and with personality too!
Not that you need it, but I thought I’d share a tip I was once given. I was dealing with a skirt with two layers, the top layer was fuller than the layer below. I spent much time and bad-temper trying to recreate the layers and get the gathers even again. After eventually getting it ok looking (ish) someone pointed out – ‘sew together first, THEN cut’. I had a face-palm moment. I have tried it since and found it much easier!
Yep, I’m well aware of that handy tip 😉 Unfortunately the silly original dress had soooo much thick, bunched up, shirred elastic at the waist I couldn’t easily stitch the tulle & underskirt together before cutting without losing loads of fabric so it was much better to simply chop it up and sew it separately.
Even I wanna wear that dress with the attitude as your little chweety-pie…. 😀
She definitely seems to have inherited a love of performing from somewhere 😉