Sweater Dress Refashion

I LOVE the DI! I'm so excited that we have such an awesome thrift store here, I really get the best stuff there. While children's clothes are a little harder to find there, I almost always find some great stuff to refashion and I've found some great toys for Tabitha there. We got her one of those Leap Frog Fridge Car magnet toys for $5! She loves it! I found some great tops to make into dresses and the like for Tabitha too. Today I pulled out a pink sweater I bought for her to turn into a dress. Its perfect for this weather since its getting a little warmer but not sundress weather yet. I got this Sweater for $3!
So I turned this:

Into this: 

The Dress itself took me less than a 1/2 hour to make, the belt took twice as long. go figure!

Would you like to make one? 

Here's what you need

Sweater (I used a women's size M)-- My daughter is 2 but wears 18 month. I made this a little big so she can grow into it. 

A shirt that fits your child

Wrapping paper (that's what I use for patters) or whatever you like to use for patterns.

Pins, Thread, a Streatch needle, Sewing machine, Hand sewing needle, scissors, beads, 

a belt buckle, a scrap of fabric for the belt (I used the edge of a fat quarter), fusible interfacing.

To make your pattern:

I took a shirt that fits my daughter and turned it inside out. I used a pj shirt that bells, it was easier to freehand the skirt that way.

I traced along the shirt and added length for the skirt. I should mention that I ended up having to take the arm holes in a lot so next time I'm going to make them much smaller that it would seem that I should. 

I folded the pattern in half and then cut it in half. 

Fold the sweater in half and pin, then cut the dress out. I cut a little high for the neck so I could use the original neck line. 

The sleeves:

Using the very scientific method of taking the existing sleeves and putting them on my daughter inside out then pining them where I wanted them to be on her. 

I pinned the sleeve where I wanted it.

Sewed the sleeve closed.

And cut off the extra. I know super scientific and exact right =)

Sewing the Dress:

This is a piece of the edge that I had left over. I folded the edges to the middle and sewed them down. Then cut them in half.

This is what they look like after being sewn. 

I pinned these into the sides of the dress where I wanted them then pinned the rest of the dress.

Next sew the shoulders seams. 

Then sew the side seams making sure to catch the belt loops, ( forgot and had to go back and rip the seam out and then re sew it, its a pain, remember to do it the first time)

Turn the sleeves right side out and pin the sleeve to the bodice right sides together. 

Then sew the sleeve to the bodice. 

If you didn't use the hem from the shirt you'll need to hem your dress now. 

The Belt:

I took a fat quarter and folded over the edge and cut two pieces from that. I sewed the two pieces together at one end. 

Cut a piece of interfacing that fit the belt.

Then iron the interfacing to the back side of the fabric.

Fold the belt in half inside out.

Sew along the top and then side of the belt.

The next part took the longest. Now is time to turn the belt right side out. (If anyone has a good way to do this quickly let me know, this always takes the longest!)

Once I had the belt right side out, I pined it to the ironing board and ironed the belt flat. I then unpinned it and flipped it over. Then I ironed it again. 

I then slipped the belt through the belt buckle and sewed it down. 

I then put the belt through the belt loops.

Now on to the Flower:

I cut out little petals of different sizes from the scraps of the sweater. 

I laid out the petals into the design I wanted then I sewed the flower in three layers. 

This is the first layer, I sewed each layer the same way then sewed all three layers together.

The next part I don't have pictures of, Sorry. 

Next I hand sewed beads to the center of the flower, I made sure to go though each bead twice with the thread in order to make sure it was secure, since my little one likes to pull on things. Next I hand sewed the flower to the dress from behind. 

Tabitha was a little distracted because she was watching Angelina Ballerina while I was trying to take her picture. =)

She really likes the flower, She loves the beads the best, although I think I'm going to add more beads later. Gotta give this kid a little more bling =)

Overall this Dress took me about two hours, start to finish including the beading. It was actually really simple and fun to make. The Sweater cost me $3, the interfacing was $1.98 a yard, I bought 4 yards of it to have on hand. The buckle cost me $0.30 and the fabric for the belt was free from a fat quarter exchange I did on sew mama sew last year. In total this dress cost me less than $5 to make! Thats my kind of dress!