Quick Summer Tank Dress

My sister, Shannon, goes through major creative spells every one in awhile. Recently, she’s been going through her closet to remake some of her clothes, which has meant two afternoons hanging out while she remade shorts, dresses, shirts.

So… she inspired me to look at some of my clothes and see what I could remake to get new life out of. I had this blue tank top and decided to make a cute little summer dress.

What you need:
*tank top
*1 1/2 to 2 yd coordinating fabric

1.  Cut the bottom of your tank top off. Set aside.

2.  Wrap your fabric around your waist about 1 1/2 times. Cut that side if you need to (Mine was just fine so I used the whole 1 1/2 yd for the skirt).

3.  Fold your fabric in half (going the same way that you just were working with) and cut along that fold. You now have a front and back to your skirt.

4.  With the right sides of the fabric together, sew the two side seams.

5.  Set your stitch to the longest length. Sew a basting stitch 1/2″ from the top of your skirt. Don’t backstitch. Based on making mine, I’d suggest starting one basting stitch at one side seam along the front and ending at the other side. Repeat for the back. (See this post from Make It and Love It about creating ruffles for more details on this step. Don’t worry that it says for knits, because the process is the same no matter the type of fabric.)

6.  Pull the top thread to create a ruffle. Do this to both the front and back of your skirt.

7. Pin the right side of the skirt to the right side of the tank top you cut, matching the side seams. I pin on the tank top side so that runs through the top of my machine. I find the ruffles stay more even that way. Use LOTS of pins!

8.  For the belt, cut a strip of fabric to go around your waste and can be tied in the back. The strip should be double the width you want the belt to be.

9.  Fold the belt in half, right sides together. Stitch around three of the sides (two long and one of the short).

10.  Turn it right side out. Fold the open end in and pin. Top stitch around the whole thing. (I messed up with my cutting so I didn’t have enough to comfortably tie the belt behind my back. I attached a piece of velcro instead. Oops.)

Tada! A quick summer tank dress.

That’s me in my classroom 🙂