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