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Toddler dress from dad’s old shirt

Yesterday, I decided my husband had too many unused shirts lying about. I ventured outside of my yarny comfort zone, got out the sewing machine and gave one of those forlorn shirts a second life as a dress for our little girl!

The pattern and tutorial for this super easy peasant dress is free and can be found on this lovely craft blog: Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom. I made the smallest size (12-18 months), but the pattern includes sizes up to 8 years. I can see myself making many more of these… It really was easy – it took me 3 hours, and I’m a beginner at clothing!

But, hooker at heart, I just had to add some crochet to this project! The little dress was cute but something was missing. I swapped the original shirt buttons for bigger ones, making the gaps in-between the buttons look more proportional. Nice. But still, it didn’t quite look finished…

2016-03-15 14.40.45  2016-03-15 14.39.45

Then it hit me – of course – edging! I grabbed some white DK weight yarn from my stash, a 3.5mm hook, and crocheted a 91 cm long strip of simple edging (91 cm = measurement around the bottom hemline). I then machine sewed the crochet edging to the reverse of the skirt with a straight seam. Tah-dah! 🙂

2016-03-15 15.07.10  2016-03-15 15.16.03

Here’s the pattern for the crochet edging:

Chain any number divisible by 6 + 2, turn. Chain 1 and sc in every stitch across, turn. Chain 3, 2 dc in first sc, [skip 2 sc, sc in next sc, skip 2 sc, 6 dc in next sc, repeat from [ across. Done!

2016-03-15 15.14.56

Recent Comments

4 Comments

  1. Jen Jen

    Wow! I love it. Thanks for your report and photos! I will sew it too and I will crochet! It looks so cute!

  2. Kathy Kathy

    It’s so cute! Did you move the pocket?

    • hookedbyanna hookedbyanna

      Yes, I made it smaller and moved it!

  3. Really you have made such a beautiful dress. I liked this idea of turning old t-shirt in to a dress so much. I would like to make this one for my daughter. Thanks for sharing.

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