Manshirtdress!

I'm going to a ladies only dinner party this saturday and figured it was a great occasion to whip up a new dress. Now I'm not super girly, I like comfort and function. And pockets (which will be added before the weekend). So this isn't a formal dress. It was made from a size large button up shirt I found for $3 at my favorite thrift store.


Giant shirt. I can assure you it was huge on me, but you'll have to take my word for it because in my triumph to actually remember to take a before picture, I forgot to WEAR IT IN THE PHOTO. Good job there, crafty lady :P

The first thing I did was turn the shirt inside out and cut off the sleeves.


Then I measured roughly how long I wanted the sleeves to be (to the elbow) and cut, trying to follow the original curve/angle of where the sleeve would meet the shirt. Follow the curve! This is important because if you cut it straight across it will sew on ok to the shirt but look really frumpy and pull in weird places when you wear it. I learned this the hard way years ago :P


Then I took a girl size button up shirt and shamelessly used it to figure out how I wanted the shirt-dress to fit and where the shoulders should end. (I do this all the time) Then I traced around the shirt with a yellow Prismacolor pencil (it washes out easily, is less dusty than chalk, and the buttery smooth lead is oh so nice)


Next I pinned all along the yellow lines of the inside out shirt and tried it on to see if it fit right. You can use a dress form for this too, then you won't accidentally stab yourself multiple times with pins. This is the time to do tweaking, because pins are forgiving.


When the sides are all fitted correctly, they can be sewn up and now it's time for the sleeves. I narrowed them down a bit from man-size and matched up the bottom seam with the armpit/side seam of the shirt and pinned all around.


This sleeve is sewn on and ready to be serged. I serged everything so the dress can be thrown in the laundry and not unravel itself completely. If you don't have a serger, just leave enough selvage to do a tight zigzag stitch close to the edge.


What's the opposite of inside out? Do that to the shirt. I can't think of the correct term but my husband came up with several that didn't necessarily sound wrong but were still strange :)
Anyways, I wore a tank top and leggings under it, threw a belt on (this is key to making it appear more fitted) et voilà; Manshirtdress!


I will probably wear a pink tank top and pink Chucks to the dinner party, but I couldn't find the tank for this picture so here's a blue one.


The back of the dress. You really don't have to add darts even, if it's just a comfy flowy dress.


side.