Ruffle T-shirt Dress

My sweet baby girl is 3 yrs. old but wears a girls size 7. Clothes these days try to make the kids look older than they are. However, I still want my 3 yr. old to look 3.

This past weekend, I had the challenge of finding an inexpensive, cute little-girl dress to fit her. After looking at seriously 5 different stores, and finding 1 that I liked, that was $35, I just gave up and bought this clearance T-shirt for $1.50. Then I headed over to hobby lobby, got 3 coordinating fabrics, and some tulle. (I got 1/4 of a yd. of 2 fabrics and 1/3 of a yd. of 1(a bit extra for a bow I thought) and then 1 yd. of the tulle. This came to $4.

Here's what I did....

I measured where I wanted the skirt to start on my little girl, added 1 inch, then cut off the rest.

I then took some extra white cotton I had. It was only 9 inches by the width of the fabric. I hemmed one edge, then started on the ruffles. As I measured, they had given me a bit of room to play with, so I had 10 inches and cut 2 strips 5 inches by the width of the fabric. I did this with all 3 coordinating fabrics, and set the extra aside. Then I sewed the strips together, hemmed and ruffled. I repeated this on the other 2 fabrics too. I wanted a full skirt but didn't want to spend the $$ for it, I cut the tulle at 5 inches by the width just to give it fluff. I ruffled 3 strips together and repeated 2 more times.

Then I laid out my white cotton and started with a row of tulle just an inch above the hem. I continued to add tulle then fabric until I got to the last row of fabric. It looked like this.

Then with right sides together I sewed the cotton edges together, leaving out the ruffles. (I sewed these individually after I sewed it on the T-shirt. Then you couldn't tell where the seam was.) I then sewed the skirt part onto the T-shirt. Just the extra part at the top was used. I wanted it to lay nice, and the ruffles would have been bulky in the seam. You can see it in the 2nd picture above.

Once sewn, it looked like this.

Then I needed to cover up the ruffles seam. I added a strip of ribbon, attaching it to the just below the seam of the ruffles and the T-shirt. It looked like this.

It still didn't look right, so I cut the sleeves off at the elbow and used the extra material I had reserved for a bow and added a bell sleeve. I also added a bow in front for "extra beauty"!! And I used some of the extra ribbon around the waist to make a bow and this was the end result.

A very happy little girl (and Mom too!!) Dad loved it too, especially cause the final cost was $7. Give it a try if you have any questions, feel free to ask. I know my instructions and pictures aren't the best, I should have waited for better lighting, but I am learning!!

Until next time....