The Alice Dress

It’s time for a little DIY Day clothing mash up. What do you get when you cross the tank top style dresses seen everywhere from Anthropologie to Target with a serious case of Alice and Wonderland on the brain?

You get the Alice Dress!

It’s comfy, feminine, and was very easy to make. You only need about a yard of fabric, some elastic, and a tank or t-shirt.

I started with this old top from Target, but you could use any fitted tank or tee with some stretch to it.

I cut the cami out of the top and saved the rest of the fabric for ruffles.

For the skirt portion of the dress, you will need a piece of fabric wide enough to go around you twice and as long as you’d like. Cut the fabric in half and sew up each edge so you have a big, rectangle open on both ends.

Fold the top over twice and iron and pin. Sew this top hem twice. Once about ½ centimeter from the top of the fabric and again about 3 centimeters (or however wide your elastic is) below the first hem.

You can also create the bottom hem at this time. I ended up with a deep bottom hem, because I decided I wanted the dress to be shorter than I originally thought. It’s always better to have too much fabric to work with than not enough!

Once you have the top of the skirt hemmed, use scissors or a seam ripper to cut a tiny slit in the fabric between the two hems.

Cut a strip of elastic about an inch smaller than your waist and feed through the tube created by the two hems. Sew the elastic together at the ends.

Now it’s time to connect the skirt to the top. Try them both on and decide how high you want the skirt to ride. I decided on my natural waistline above my hips. Very, very carefully pin the skirt to the top (this is where a dress form would come in handy!) and very, very carefully take the dress off.

Sew the top edge of the skirt fabric (above the double hems) to the top. You can stop here, but I decided to make a sash to define the waist a bit more.

My sash is just a long strip of the skirt fabric. I pinned the right sides together, sewed it into a long tube, turned it right side out, and hemmed the ends.

I think this is my favorite clothing refashion so far!

I feel very Alice in Wonderland-y when I wear this dress.

The skirt is so swingy and fun! Yay, for spring and girly dresses!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway for a $50 gift card code to any CSN Store!

<3
Hattie