Today's DIY Sunday features my daughter and her ever evolving style. She may be just five, but she has very strong opinions on what is "cute" and what is not. Skinny jeans are okay, but boot cut jeans are not cute. Don't even get her started on wearing a plain sweatshirt. There's always extra points for pink, sparkles or dresses. I feel like I'm dressing her for the cool kids table straight out of Mean Girls
Thankfully, the clothes I make for her still fit in the "cute" category, although those days may be numbered. It's become a bit of a tradition each season change. I go through my closet and make a couple of piles (toss, donate, sew, etc.) This weekend we made a baseball shirt dress from one of my old college shirts. I also decided to sew through my finger for the first (and hopefully last time!). Don't do that. Seriously. My poor index finger not only got sewn through this past weekend, but last year I cut through it with a rotary cutter. I'm a hardcore crafter y'all.
Making children clothes from adult clothes is actually really simple. Most of my sewing projects only require a simple understanding of using a sewing machine (I'm no sewing wizard). I always put the shirt on my daughter inside out. I then grab a pile of pins and follow her silhouette. It's pretty easy. The only "tricky" part is the sleeves, mostly because you don't want to go too tight, or she'll never be able to get into it. I may eventually try to use my husband's castaways to make my son some t-shirts. Making each dress usually only takes 45 minutes or so, and she still thinks it's fun to wear a version of my clothes.
In addition to the dresses we made, we also did this super (SUPER) easy method to making t-shirt bags. In fact, this method can easily be no sew. You can simply tie up the bottom instead of sewing. My daughter made one bag completely on her own using that method.
Check out our t-shirt upcycle projects!
Did I also mention she's a complete ham when it comes to modeling her new dresses?
On this baseball shirt dress, I simply took in the entire shirt along her silhouette. I also shortened the sleeves and hemmed the bottom up.
This dress was a little more difficult because it was a tank top. I took in the sides along her silhouette. I removed the straps and re attached them in a cross pattern on the back. I also had to play with the scallop design on the front so it wasn't baggy. I also hemmed up the bottom just a bit.
This dress is one of my daughter's favorite (and ironically, was one of my favorite shirts as well). We took in the sides to match her silhouette and closed up the arm holes so they were smaller. I also took in the back a bit as well so we could use the existing buttons and holes to secure the dress. The tricky part was hemming the bottom with the different layers of slick fabric. It's not perfect, but it does the trick.
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