Sew Mountain Momma: Dressing Your Girls Modestly and Inexpensively

My five year old has been growing like a weed. She had gotten so tall that many of her dresses were shamefully short. Through a series of events, I remembered how years ago, I had made t-shirt dresses for my other girls. They were long, comfortable and inexpensive. So, I decided to make long sleeved t-shirts dresses again for Evie. The only problem was, she didn't really have any long sleeved t-shirts, either.

I headed out to do some shopping, wanting to spend as little as possible. Now, I don't typically shop at Wal-mart, but here in WV your choices are limited. So, to Wal-mart I went. I happened to find 3 long-sleeved shirts for $3.50 and one turtleneck shirt for $3.00. So, I picked those up and headed over to the fabric section. I went through and chose three coordinating fabrics for each shirt. I tried to stick with fabrics that were $2.00 a yard or less. With my 12 bolts of fabric, I went to the cutting counter and got 1/4 yard of each.

These dresses are for winter, so I picked up a spool of black thread to use with all four dresses. At the check out, my total purchase was right at $20. I came home, eager to get started. I made the skirt to each dress first, and then attached it to the t-shirt. I first stitched the skirt on with the right sides together but with the bottom of the skirt up toward the neckline of the shirt. Then, I pulled the skirt down so that I had a completed looking dress, but on the outside of the skirt, I stitched the skirt down again.

I did this, because years ago, when I made the first t-shirt dresses, the fabric was often too heavy for the t-shirt and would eventually start pulling away, ripping the t-shirt and not looking very nice at all. With the skirt stitched on twice, it is very secure and I didn't have to worry about finishing the top edge of the skirt as it is now hidden under the second row of stitching.

As you can tell, these were some pretty colorful dresses, but they fit the personality of my youngun'. There was probably a cheaper way to do these dresses, but when you are the youngest of six girls to have "brand new" dresses can be pretty exciting. And I didn't feel that $20 for 4 dresses was a bad deal.

Hope this inspires you to give the idea a try. Let me know how it turns out for you and have fun!