Bitten by the Vintage T Bug.

Whether you call it upcycling or refashioning, it's all the rage.  Everywhere I look, people are converting old t-shirts into fabulously funky kids' clothes.  Although I own more fabric than I'll ever be able to sew in my lifetime, I couldn't help myself and had to get my hands on some fun vintage shirts. 

So I shopped Etsy (though thift stores would surely have been better) and paid too much for a sparkly(!), rainbow(!) carebear(!) t-shirt straight out of the 1980s.  I cut it into a dress bodice and then began second-guessing my design choice.  Should I use raglan-style sleeves?  Should I use a waist strip of coordinating fabric?  Should I make the skirt twirly or a-line?  Oh no!

Then I did what any reasonable dress maker would do.  I ran to Target and bought a cheapie t-shirt so I could make a sample dress (again, nevermind that I have cabinets full of fabric).  I chose coordinating fabric that I had on hand, but I didn't bother to prewash anything (gasp!).  This is what I came up with, though the photo makes the neckline look a little wonky, which it isn't really:

My twirly girly loved it.  Apparently it was the perfect dress for happily making mudcakes.

Carebear is now on the backburner though, because I decided to first convert an old Kermit the Frog shirt of mine, which I wore many years ago for an artichoke/crazy shirt party (yes, really), into a dress.  Strawberry Shortcake is waiting in the wings too.  I can't neglect my little guy, so Captain America is in the queue for him, for conversion to hoodie.  (Let's not talk about the fact that my pre-kids self swore to avoid licensed characters.)

Pattern Notes:  I started with the Lil Blue Boo Sienna Dress pattern.  After studying lots of pictures of dresses made from this pattern, I decided to lower the neckline slightly in front and raise it slightly in back.  I also altered the front armpit-to-neck angle slightly.  I determined neckband length as 80% of the opening.  I added a waistband strip.  I used a circle skirt, guided by the MADE's calculation instructions, (radious = waistband measurement without seam allowances divided by 6.28).