Refashioning: How to Make a Dickie from a Collared Shirt and Instantly Elevate Your Wardrobe

Sometimes, you buy a shirt when you only actually like the collar. You may hate the rest of it (as I do for the shirt below!)

So, today, we are going to make a dickie!

Dickies are a great way to elevate a regular no-collar shirt or sweater. In the 90s, dickies were mostly just the top part of a turtleneck made to wear under V-neck sweaters without having the added bulk and heat-trapping layers of a full turtleneck.

However, while they were supposed to make life easier, they usually ended up creeping up around the decollate area and making weird wrinkles underneath said sweaters.

Today, dickies are made much more thoughtfully as they have elastic under the armpits to keep them down. (Innovative!!) Also, they aren't just turtlenecks anymore. See the cute one below? I bought it because (1) the dickie was much cheaper than buying the whole shirt, (2) I can mix and match it with not just fall/winter attire, but also spring/summer shirts, (3) I wanted one to study to figure how to make my own!

Using the pre-made dickie as a template, I laid my shirt down underneath it and cut around. If you don't have a pre-made dickie, you can cut from around the seam at the top of the shoulder down to about the top of the chest area--usually down to about the fifth or sixth button. Really, this measurement is up to you and how deep the necklines are of the items under which you will be putting the dickie, so you should probably get your deepest necklined shirt/sweater out and use that as your reference. Wherever that neckline falls, give yourself another inch or two to make sure the dickie doesn't pop out!

For mine, I used binding lace to finish the edges. If you don't have binding you can just leave about 5/8" seam allowance around the extremity when you are cutting your dickie out, then fold the edge in about 1/4" and press, and then fold it in again about 1/4" and press. That was too much work for me, so I bound instead! (Also. . .you really don't HAVE to finish the edges as they will never be seen, so you can skip to the next step if raw edges don't bother you. However, bear in mind that finished edges keep things from falling apart over time. So. . .do as the Spirit leads.)

Here are the edges all finished.

Next, you need to measure about 6-ish inches of elastic for under the arms. Fold the edge of the elastic under about 1/4" and pin it to the wrong side of either side of the dickie to create arm holes.

Then, zig-zag stitch them in place.

The finished arm hole from the right side.

The finished dickie.

Much cuter than the original shirt!

The End!