Upcycling Obsession: Summer's End Toddler Dress Tutorial

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Now, the Summer's End Toddler Dress reveal and simple tutorial.

My inspirations were taken from these adorable JCrew dresses below. Just didn't want to pay the $50 price tag. $4 and a few hours is more my style.




And here it is on little Ava. I have a pretty cute model, don't ya think?


I had found this cute XL woman's skirt at Target on clearance and knew it'd be perfect as a dress for Ava. I've had it sitting in my sewing bin for months and thought it was time.

So, here's the easy tutorial. But, first of all. Just so you know. I don't explain things very well. I wasn't trained professionally so I don't know all of the technical sewing terms. So please ask questions if you're confused. Which you might already be.

This was made for a 2T-3T.

Here's how:

-measure the skirt (at the skirt's waistband) around her chest (inside out) underneath her armpits (while bribing your model with chocolate chips if she held still - -pssst. . . always works). It ended up being 21.5 inches around the chest and back.

-from there, I pinned down the skirt and made it look as symetrical as I could with the other side by just folding the dress in half and cutting off the extra material. *** don't forget to leave about 1/2 inch extra for the seam.

-with right sides together, sew down the skirt on that one side.

-I wanted the dress to go to her knees, so I just cut a few inches off and because of this ruffly fabric, I didn't even have to hem the bottom (from under the armpit to the knees, it ended up being 16 in. long). But in most cases, you'll probably have to hem it.

-Now time for the straps. Because this was a woman's XL skirt, there was some fabric leftover. The skirt had a slip like material underneath the ruffles so that's what I used to make the straps. I cut the material 3 inches x 11.5 inches (2 of them), sewed down them lengthwise making them into tubes and turning them right side out.

-I then tried the dress on her and determined where the strapes would go, pinned it, and sewed them to the dress.

You're done!

Hope it wasn't too complicated. I was really just doing it as I went.

I also glued fabric roses that I'd made from extra pieces of the fabric onto an elastic headband. Now that I see these pictures, it does seem a bit too big for her head, but oh well.

To take the pictures, I had to bribe her by taking her across the street to feed the fish in the lake. Works every time.

Hope you like it!

I'll be sharing this upcycle and tutorial with some of these link parties at the bottom of this page. So, check them out!!!