Free tutorial: Vintage Style Girl Silk Gown Made Out of A Blouse

Story about the shirt: I can't remember exactly when I got this shirt, but pretty sure it came with the flower jumper in my previous post. Reasons made me bring it home are the same as the jumpers: on sale and made of silk. As an Aisan, I have picky taste about materials: I am fond of natural fabrics such as silk and cotton. I don't really like the design, but the feel of the fabric convinced me to pay for it.
Later on, I realize I will never look good in this bright green color, and it is hard to match the shirt with any other pieces of clothes in my closet. So, here you go. I have confidence in B and I think she will look 100 times better than me in this shirt.

Story about the ribbon:
I got this at Hobby Lobby, one of my favorite craft stores. That day all ribbons are on 50%off, so you can imagine I was like a real shopaholic-I grabbed almost every roll... Then I calmed down and remembered we had a weight limit to travel back to Singapore... Okay, I picked several and asked the husband's opinion. Of course, he gave the typical guy answer: get them all!
Okay, so I stayed at a corner and weight every single roll in my heart, gee it is a hard thing...and finally I bought 4, and this was one of them.
However, I never really get to use this pattern after a while. I feel like the material is not very easy to handle and I am also not creative enough to make any miracle out of it... Until today, when I almost finished the dress and began to put some ribbons on it, I finally understand this is its destiny.
Long story short, this shirt-dress gown took me about 2 hours, so easy to do, and so happy to see another piece of useless item become something amazing.

Flower Silk Dress and Hairband for Baby Girl (Altered from Adult Jumper)

    

 I love summer dresses, though in Singapore I don't have a choice- this is a country has no other seasons but summer. Anyway, gives me more excuse making colourful little dresses for my little one. Also in this tropical place, the best material ever is silk- a silky dress is just like another layer of natural skin for the baby!

I have these silk jumper for years, since I was still in the US and found this one on sale. So of course, it is not my size (way too big), but I love the pattern and the design. However, since it doesn't fit me, and especially now I have been breastfeeding, I feel I would never be able to wear this out. 

We all have something in the closet like this, right? Yes it's pretty, but you would never pick it out for a date or, there will always be excuses not to wear it out...but, too pretty to throw away.

Okay, now luckily, I have a lovely baby girl and she will need this piece of adorable flower silk!

I don't have a pattern, but you can follow the tutorial to work on other materials. 

Some tips for using silk: 

1,if you are a first-time sewer or not very good at measuring, try to use paper patterns and cut with them. Otherwise silk it very hard to control. 

2, if you are like me, don't want to give the comfortable material a inner layer ( I always think it is stupid to put polyester layers inside silk-the reason you dress silk is to make yourself more comfortable, but polyester stops it!), you'd better try not to sew zippers, because silk will be too fragile for holding zippers.

3, this one is for all who's also alter from old clothes: think before you cut, you will always find something useful on the old ones.

 here you go!

step 1:

this is follow my tip No.3. I cut the waist band of my jumper and give each side a about half inch area. This one can turn into a perfect ruffle without extra work!

step 2: 

front side. I gathered the middle first to decide how wide I should cut.  Also remember we are not using any zippers, so make sure the front and back sides will be big enough to let your kid's head go through. 

Step 3:

seam the sleeve part for the front side.

Step 4:

cut a back part. This time please match the size of your front side.

Step 5:

cut the bottom. Since we are gonna to gather, you need to make at least 1 and half times longer than the front side. and make two pieces and seam them together. I cheated since I have the top of my jumper, I just cut out the collar part and left the rest without extra sawing.

Step 6: 

Gather the bottom. Since I want to match the ruffle, I gathered the bottom first.

Step 7:

Put the bottom and the top together. I put the bottom out of the front and back part also to match the ruffle I will put at the bottom of the dress later.

Step 8:

cut two short pieces out of the ruffle we made in Step 1, and sew them on the shoulders. 

Step 9:

put the ruffle in step 1 to the bottom. Uh-oh, I don't have enough... So I just put on the front side... Anyway, not too bad for a stay-in-the-house dress.

Step 10:

since we will not have any zipper, so I put some elastic thread on the collar to hold them tight.

Step 11:

Now just seam all the collar, underarm part, and every single place that I haven't been able to mention... Also as using old clothes, I always try to take advantage of the seams-to save you some time!

Now the dress is finished! I will show how to do the flower and the hairband in the next post.