TCWC: The Modified Church T-Shirt Dress!

Shannon, my pastor's wife, let me get the same shirt I just posted in a 3XL so I could make a dress out of it! Here's the thing, though. There are tons of "Make a Dress out of a T-Shirt" tutorials out there, and you know what? Most of those shirts are too slutty to actually wear. Being that this is a church T-Shirt, and the fact that I never end up wearing shirts I can't wear a bra with anyway, it took me a little longer to figure out how to do this one. Normally, I just cut the top and sleeves off so I'm left with a big tubular rectangle and then cut the sleeves into straps for a tank dress, but that still wasn't going to work. I wanted to be able to wear this to church for worship team and/or wear to work, which means covered shoulders. I guess I could wear a sweater over a tank dress, but during summer months, that gets really annoying. So I would need to make a dress that had sleeves and wasn't super short. Plus, I liked the challenge!

Here is the shirt just before I started cutting. (Actually, I already started cutting. If you look around the collar you can see slits.) I got this idea from this blog on Pinterest. If you cut slits about 2" long and 3/4" wide, you can "braid" them. Basically, you loop each loop inside each other till you get the look below.

See the collar? I kinda started freaking out at this point because the shirt didn't look cooler. It looked even frumpier than before! Obviously, something else had to be done. . .

So then, I proceeded to fold the shirt in half, smooth the wrinkles down, and then cut the sleeves off, cut into the shirt to make new sleeves, tapered in to make a waist, and tapered out to make hips. 

I also cut slits around the bottom to "braid" along the bottom as well. I could easily have stopped there, but there were still two problems: (1) It was long enough for a tunic shirt, but not really a dress. (2) Also, my arms are annoyingly skinnier than the rest of my body and flowy sleeves do nothing good for me. If you have bigger arms, this look would be flattering on you; however, I end up looking like a turtle.

I added length by taking out the seams in the original sleeves, sewing them together, and then adding them to the bottom of the skirt. (Again, if you have bigger arms and/or are apple-shaped, you should stop here. This look will emphasize your skinny legs, flatter your arms, and hide your tummy.)

To give the dress a better pear-shape for my body type, I did the same slit-braiding around the arms and took the waist in a little more.

Here is a close-up of the braiding on the sleeves.

Here is another picture of the finished product. I wore it this way to church last Sunday, but I wore it without a belt and with capri leggings to work earlier in the week. I will definitely wear this on the plane during my missions trip this summer because It's super comfortable and worry-free (aka: I don't have to suck in all the time!) I also like the style of it. It's kinda "new" looking in the design.

Here's a little tip about braiding. If you want a more "gathered" look, cut the slits straight up and down like I did on the top. If you want a less "gathered" look, cut the slits like arrow points like I did in the bottom row. 

If you notice, the top material is more puckered and ruffle-y. The bottom material is flatter.

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Here is another picture in case it helps to see the difference.

The End!

The Sherry Dress

My sister-in-law (and great friend!), Sherry, is having a miracle baby (whole other story). She asked if I would make her a dress. I am willingly ignorant about many things when it comes to having children, but I know a few things about maternity clothes: Pregnant women love the comfort but hate the style. Sherry is an awesome person, so it took me awhile to come up with her dress.

First, I asked her to give me a dress of hers that she liked. It was a purple tank top dress. She wanted a dress that she could wear to work, so the dress I would make would need sleeves. I laid the purple dress on the floor and traced the basic outline of it and then added sleeves to my pattern, but also made a sort of criss-cross front, because that is flattering to the female figure. Sherry has awesome shoulders, so I braided some strips of material and sewed them onto the shoulders. She also requested that I make it a maxi dress. Maxi dresses are automatically more comfortable than shorter dresses. If you are a woman, you understand why without my explaining...

I went to Walmart and found this really soft grey jersey fabric. The problem with it, though, was that it was kind of see-through, so I had to layer it. If you have ever worked with jersey, you can understand what a headache it is to try to sew several layers of it together. The advantage, though, is that now it's not see-through, so she can wear it confidently throughout the summer. Anyways, this is what I came up with:

Doesn't she look so cute? And she can wear it after she delivers, because I pleated the front of the skirt part instead of gathering it, so it will lay flat later on.

I love you, Sherry!