August 13, 2016

High-Low Hem Tunic Refashion

In less than 2 weeks, we will celebrate my daughter's 5th birthday! So as a countdown to her birthday, all month long I will share posts featuring clothes I've sewn for her over these wonderful year. Today I'm sharing a tunic I made for her by refashioning an old dress of mine.

I've been refashioning the clothes that I just can't seem to let go, even though I haven't worn them in years... many years. Although I've made numerous trips to Goodwill and donated many large bags full of clothes, I still have so many clothes lingering around. Several years ago, I bought a black, purple, gray, and teal dress from Wet Seal. Wet Seal was one of my favorite stores when I was in my late teens and early 20s.  I think I may have worn the dress a few times with leggings, but eventually a whole developed near the collar. Thus, it became a house dress.  Since I still loved the fabric, I decided to refashion it into something for my daughter.  And what a process that was! Here are some pictures from my sewing adventure:

I didn't use a pattern to transform the dress into a high-low hem toddler tunic.  I used one of my daughter's 2T tunics as a guide for making the bodice of the new tunic.  I used my yellow tailor's chalk to trace around the tunic onto the wrong side of the fabric, and I traced around a little larger for the seam allowance.  I doubled up the fabric, and sewed the pieces together.  Then I flipped the pieces inside out.

I decided to add buttons to the back of the tunic.  I found some purple buttons in my button stash, and I used my handy dandy button hole maker.  Another sewing blogger once told me that I should always sew around the button hole twice.  That is such great advice! I sewed the buttons on by hand.  

I zigzag stitched the parts of the bodice together.  Then I cut a rectangular piece for the bottom of the tunic, and I stitched a gathering stitch around the top.  I ironed the bodice piece, and then sewed the bodice and the bottom together. 

I cut the bottom to create the high-low hem, pinned it, and then sewed it.  I decided to add some ruffles to the front of the tunic, so I used some scrap fabric from the dress to create ruffles.  The last thing I did to this tunic was I hand sewed the lacy crochet piece onto the neck line.  It really pops!

Ta-da!  All Done!  I am extremely happy with this sewing project.  I think it turned out really well, especially since I did not use a pattern.  This tunic looks really cute on my daughter.  I was a little sad that I wasn't able to get the pattern of the fabric to line up perfectly in the back, but that's one of the drawbacks of refashioning/upcycling; the amount of fabric I had to work with was really limited.

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It's so much fun making something old new again! I'm going to check my closet for something else to refashion soon! Thanks for reading!

4 comments:

  1. I love this repurpose. I need to do this with some of my tops for my 3 yr old. Thanks for sharing with us at Family Joy Blog Link Up Party. Hope to see you next week.

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  2. What a great idea for repurposing your clothes. Thank you for sharing at Snickerdoodle.

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  3. SO cute!! I love the matching outfits! :)

    Would love for you to share this with my Facebook Group for recipes, crafts, and tips: https://www.facebook.com/groups/pluckyrecipescraftstips/

    Thanks for joining Cooking and Crafting with J & J!

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  4. This is amazing! I love that you were able to turn this piece you loved into something for your daughter. So cool, and she looks adorable in it! Thanks for sharing with our Merry Monday party!

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