The 90 Minute Shirt ... Lesson

Last week on Facebook, I posted that the baby doesn't have much in the way of t-shirts for the summer. Since the budget is a little tight right now, I thought of this tutorial from Dana of MADE and figured since I have saved a few old t-shirts, I should be able to make some of these shirts for my big-headed little guy for next to nothing.

My first attempt:

To be fair, I didn't have an envelope shirt I was happy about cutting up, so I tried to make the pattern without cutting one up. My failure to follow instructions properly should in no way reflect upon Dana's fabulous tutorial(s). I definitely think this is a pattern failure and if I head back to the drawing board on the pattern, I should be able to fix it up for next time.

So, someone had posted a quote on Facebook this morning saying something about a mistake is only a mistake if you don't learn anything from it, otherwise it's a lesson. So, this is my lesson. Follow the instructions! (sigh) When will I learn this? On the plus side, I didn't spend anything on fabric. I cut up an old t-shirt of Dan's and an old tank top of mine (for the ribbing). The tank top ribbing was a little loosey-goosey so that probably didn't help the situation, but I don't think having a tighter rib would have fixed the pattern issue. I will try one of these again, but I'll have to have a pattern re-do.

Shirt Dresses

I had to tell you about this. This was originally posted on my personal blog, Containers and Compartments, but is definitely appropriate for here. Shirt Dresses are taking the craft blogging community by storm lately. I've seen many women making these cute little dresses for their daughters. So if you haven't seen one already, here are my first two.


The first shirt dress I made was a retired shirt from my husband's closet. He really liked this shirt, but he just didn't wear it anymore and I thought it would make a fabulous dress for my little Z. I must say I was impressed with my first transformation. It went relatively smoothly, even though I lost the elastic a couple times in the sleeves.


And because I made both sleeves for the dress from one of the man's shirt sleeves, I had an extra sleeve leftover to make a matching headband made from this tutorial. Z isn't exactly into headbands yet (but she really should be since I plan to help her grow out her bangs).


And since the first one was such a positive experience (even after elastic trouble), I hit the thrift store and found this man's dress shirt that was destined to be a little girl's dress.


I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture, but it's two different pinks and purple and a little bit of grey and maybe brown. Seriously, what man bought this shirt for himself to wear? No matter. The world has been set right again.


How sweet is that, eh? Love it. I definitely prefer these sleeves to the elastic ones. Less work, less elastic to lose in the casing. This one had a pocket on it that I had to pick off before I could take it apart. There are some small holes from the stitching where the pocket used to be, but I'm hoping those will close up the first time I wash it. I moved the pocket down, too. I wanted to move it to the right side of the dress, but Z wanted it on the left. Who am I to argue?


I decided to finish it with a cute top-stitching design instead of a straight hem finish, just for something a little special. I matched the detailing on the top of the pocket.

Here's my little model. It's possible the pocket's up a little too high, but I'm not going to worry about it. She's also got a bunch of blocks in her pocket, so that could be contributing to the wonky-ness of it.


The matching headband is probably a little too wide, but we can fold it over no problem. She's actually wearing it! Right now! As I type this! Yay!