Saturday, January 30, 2010

Kyla's t-shirt dress

Thursday was my last day with Kyla. Our place seems a lot quieter when she's not here. I hope I can watch her again in the future.

You may have noticed Kyla wearing this pink t-shirt in a couple of my posts:

It's one of mine which I've hardly ever worn. I bought it in NYC on a mission's trip a few years ago. On the day Kyla wore this, she had managed to get quite a bit of paint on her white shirt. So, I had her wear my t-shirt and put hers in the wash. I gathered the back neck line with a rubber band and she was good to go for the rest of the day.

Since that day, I wanted to turn the shirt into a play dress for Kyla. I waited until the last day with her and began working on it during her nap. When she woke up, I was still working on it, so I had her watch me. I had some interruptions with her, but all in all, it didn't take a long time to do. This was my experiment, as I've never done this before. I kept changing things up as I went along. 

Here's what it looked like when I was done with it:

The first thing I did was add ribbon to the bottom of the shirt and around the sleeves. It was a 21-cent find at Hobby Lobby recently. (I love a good deal!)

Next, I made some pleats around the neckline so that it would fit her better.

I gathered and stitched up the sleeves from the inside. I did the same thing on the bottom of the sleeves. I really liked how this turned out. The last thing done was the pleats I made on the front of the shirt to pull it in. 

Right before her dad came to pick her up, she tried on her new t-shirt dress. I'm pleased with how it turned out, but I thought that the next time I did this that I would take it in on the sides, as well as around the sleeve openings. 

Have any of you transformed a t-shirt into something else? I know there are lots of ideas out there, so link up!:)