3 Dresses For $3

I know Easter is over, but I wanted to show you a bit of what I’ve been working on.  I made a few Easter dresses for friends, and I used tops off of the clearance rack to do it.  It was so much fun, and each one of these dresses only cost A DOLLAR!! 

For the first one, I started off with a sweater similar to this one:

…and turned it into this:

Aren’t they cute?  They’re twins and they’re 3 1/2.  Anyway, I turned that sweater into that cute little sweater dress. 

All I did was shorten the sleeves and add the hem of a black tee shirt to the neckline and the ties.  They are made out of strips of the same black tee shirt that are stretched and knotted on the ends.  I sewed them into the sides of the sweater.  Not bad for $1.00?  Eh?!

These next two were a bit more work. 

They started off as baby-doll style tops off of the clearance rack.  I bought them in the biggest size I could find, so that I’d have more fabric to work with.

How about that price?!  Lovely!

I needed to add a bit more length for the eight year old I was sewing for.  I loved the crocheted lace at the bottom of the original hem, so I lengthened this dress at the waistband by cutting the top of the dress off.

I cut two strips of this cute pink polka dot fabric for the waist.

Then cut some side ties.

I serged the edges of the ties and sewed and serged them into the side seams of the new waistband.

I positioned the tie where I wanted it and sewed it to one side of the waistband,

then put the other waistband on top and stitched it into place.  I did this with the other side and the other tie, then serged my raw edges.

This is what the waistband looked like after these steps:

I then lined up one end of the waistband with the skirt and pinned it onto place with the right sides of the fabric together.

I sewed the waistband and the skirt together on my sewing machine, then serged around the raw edges.  Have I mentioned that I love my serger?!  Well I do.

See how pretty?

Now repeat that same process with the top of the dress and the other side of the waistband:

• right sides of fabric together
• pin into place
• sew around the edges
• serge or zig-zag your raw edges

…and it’s done!

The next one, I made for a four year old.  I didn’t need to lengthen the dress, so I just added a sash to the waistband.  I made it really long so that it could tie in the back.

Easy.

I needed to take it in quite a bit, but didn’t want to take away from the fullness of the dress, so I just shirred the back of it.

More on shirring here.

I think they turned out so cute!

Here is the little one modeling the dress.  Big Sister was at school.  Mom didn’t want her face shown, so enjoy this picture of headless Little Miss! 

It was so fun seeing all of these girlies in their Easter dresses at Church on Sunday! 

Not bad for $3.00, eh?!