Squeee!

Here's dress 2! The chiffon has sparkles in it, which you can't really see in the photo but my princess loves!

I did it!

First, I should tell you that I am NOT a seamstress. I can do straight stitches, pretty much - I'm good for hemming, mending and my short foray into quilting, when I did machine piecing. But I was reading one of my favorite blogs - Make It and Love It - and came across this tutorial for repurposing a t shirt into a dress. HAD to try it - Alexa has a bunch of these in her closet and I wanted to see if I could make one for cheapy cheapy.

It WAS cheapy cheapy! I found junior fit t shirts at AC Moore 2/$7 - these are terrific and the small fits my size 6x daughter. Alexa picked out the fabric, which was on clearance at Joann's for $4 a yard - I needed 3/4 of a yard - so the dress cost me a grand total of $6.50.

Because of the length of the shirt, I didn't need the fabric tube described in the tutorial - I just sewed the ruffles right onto the shirt. This means of course that the ruffles show over the top, rather than being under the shirt. I think the finished product is cute either way!

It's not 100% perfect - the ruffles on the top layer are a little uneven and the stitching isn't perfectly straight - but all in all, I think it turned out great. The layers are nice and even, even though you can't see it super well in the photo. Go me!!! :)