Men's Dress Shirt to Women's Dress

Day 3 of the Men's Dress Shirt Re-purpose Week here at Kharmic Chaos and I opted for a Women's dress.  Now, there are A LOT of options for this, but with the cute little checker pattern I just kept seeing a western inspired dress.  So that's what I did!

This is the shirt I started with and the initial cut I made.  I used most of this shirt for the dress so there are just a few scraps left to use for another project (maybe a bag to go with it?)  Anyway, I created this so that the buttons are in the back and gathered the entire "lower waist."  Then I attached a band of my trusty eyelet scrap (because I love it!!).  I apologize for not taking more pictures but this went so fast I sort of forgot!

So, once I had the lower waist and the waistband together (I didn't gather the eyelet at all), I added a button and button hole to the eyelet band so nothing would be amiss in the back.  Then, on to the top.  Since this shirt was pretty big on me, I lopped the arms and collar off leaving a boatneck styled neckline.  I enhanced this even more by doing a small gather at the shoulders.  Then, I attached the "bodice" to the waistline.  This dress does have an empire waist as a result.

Next, I added the sleeves.  To do this, I cut the sleeves at the half-way point to use the lower half of the sleeves only.  This made super cute short sleeves as you will see.  I still had to gather the upper portion of each sleeve to fit the armholes but the effect is really cute.  And, with the natural cuff now being the end of the sleeve it can be worn two ways, either down and button closed for a snug fit or unbuttoned and flipped up.  

Finally, I added a little eyelet pocket and finished the neckline.  It is SUPER cute all together:

And, here it is on:

This dress is for sale in my Etsy store!