How To Make Skirts Out Of Shirts

In today’s post: Learn to sew cute skirts from oversized shirts When I was a kid, it was always cheaper to make my own clothes than to buy clothes at the store. But nowadays fabric is so expensive that making your own clothes doesn’t always save money anymore. That’s why I always keep an eye on thrift stores and thrift stores for items that I can cut down and refurbish – it’s a great way to earn money buying fabric! to create a super easy dress in addition to a shirt. I have two examples – using a girl’s shirt to make a little girl’s skirt and using a man’s shirt to make a woman’s skirt. Here’s what the girl’s version looks like:And here is the female version:

How to sew a skirt from an oversized shirt

First things first: this will only work with knitted (stretch) shirts. And the sleeves need to be long enough or stretchy enough to sew together into a belt that will hug your intended recipient’s waist. If the sleeves aren’t long enough, check out your store to see if you have any knits that would match or form a cute colored dress. To make sure the machine doesn’t stretch the fabric as I sew. Start by cutting the sleeves from the shirt, then cut straight along the neckline. If you have one or two buttons on the back of your shirt, you’ll want your straight cut to be just below the bottom button.Read more: how to make a cupcake stand for 60 cupcakes Now you’ll want to turn the main part of the shirt inside out and sew new side seams, starting where the arm curve meets the part. top of your shirt pieces, then gradually work in and out of the old side seam near the hem. The photo below shows how your shirt/skirt looks before the new side seam on the left and after the new side seam on the right.If you like to measure, now would be a good time to try on dresses for your little girl. Check to make sure it’s not too long or too wide. If it’s too long, trim the length at the top (we’ll keep the bottom border to speed things up here). If it’s too big around the waist, pin it back to fit and sew new side seams, again shrinking to meet the original side seams near the hem. you won’t sew) use a skirt or shorts that fit her well to determine if you need to put the skirt on. If you’ve started with a shirt that fits her, chances are the dress will be perfect since girls have similar bust and waist measurements. Cut them into long rectangles, as shown in the image below (leave the crease at the top of the rectangle).Open your rectangles and place them on top of each other, right sides together. These rectangles will become the waistband for the skirt. Their width depends on the stretch of the fabric. Since we’ve used sleeves here, the stretch will be mostly up and down, which means the fabric will stretch less from side to side (if you cut the waistband out of the fabric, you’ll usually cut it with side stretch to edge). Since this waistband does NOT stretch much from side to side, you’ll want it to be almost as wide as the top of the skirt. If you’re using a material that’s very stretchy from side to side, you’ll want to cut it an inch or two shorter than the width of the skirt. Hope that makes sense.Okay, so you still have the right waistband pieces together, as seen above. Sew down each short edge, forming a loop or circle of fabric. Fold that loop of fabric in half with the wrong sides together (so allowable seams cannot be seen):Now turn your skirt right side out again, and lower the waistband, matching the side seams and pinning. All raw edges (two for waistband, one for skirt) must meet at the top. Pin the side seams, then center the front of the skirt to the center of the front of the waistband, and similarly to the middle back.Since the waistband is not as wide as the top of the skirt, the waistband will be a little tight inside the waistband, like this: Read more: how to identify a snakeAs you sew around that circle to attach the waistband to the skirt, you’ll need to stretch the waist fabric just enough to flatten the skirt fabric (mistake? It’s the same process used to sew the hem around the upper arm. skirt Here.) Once the waistband is attached, you’re done! Just press your seams, fold down the waistband and your shirt is already a skirt!

Turn men’s shirts into women’s skirts

I used the same process to turn this men’s polo shirt (which sells for $2) into a dress for myself, with just a few waist adjustments as the shirt doesn’t have long sleeves. I was originally going to cut this polo into a shirt for myself, but then I realized I had a plum t-shirt that went well with it. So it became an alternative dress. Here’s how: I started by cutting off the sleeves and then cutting straight through the top under the buttons:I sew the new side seams, starting at the arm curve at the top and tapering to the old side seams near the hem. Then I had a small problem – there wasn’t enough fabric left to make a yoga belt. I considered just using some of the white knitting yarn I had on hand (probably would work fine as I doubt I’d ever tuck a shirt into this skirt) – but I decided Match a waistband with the fabric I left in place. I cut the sleeves and belt into pieces of the same height:Then I sew them together, matching the stripes, into a long loop of fabric.Because the waistband is so stretchy, I ended up cutting it a little shorter than the width of the top of the skirt. When making yoga clothes, you don’t add elastic, so you have to make sure the waistband itself is tight enough around your waist to hold the skirt up. I attached the waistband to the skirt as pictured above, and that’s all – a new dress!Read more: how to make a poke and poke tool