Men's Dress Shirt Refashion - 2 for the price of 1!

I scored this XL French Connection RAINBOW shirt at a local thrift store for $7.99.  I knew it was the perfect shirt to finally try a shirt to dress refashion!  As an added bonus, I was able to get a pair of pants for baby out of it, too!  Woohoo!

The first thing I should have done was iron the shirt.  But I have a time limit for sewing projects (hello, naptime!) so I just went for it!  I folded it in half and cut off the arms.  

Then I grabbed one of Raina's current dresses to use as a guide for sizing.  (This layout has nothing to do with how I actually cut out the pieces, BTW.  I thought I might cut it differently at first, hence the lined up armholes, but decided not to go that route!)

I cut it into 3 pieces next:  A nice big chunk from right under the armpit, all the way across the shirt, a rectangle above that about 4" wide, and the top piece with the collar.

it seems I only took a picture of one of these 3 pieces.  Sorry about that :)

I gathered the large rectangle, then lined it up (both pieces open and unbuttoned) right sides facing with the smaller rectangle.  After pining like crazy, I sewed them together.  The stripes on this shirt are confusing really awesome, so sometimes it was hard to decipher which side was right and which was wrong!  I was glad I waited until the end to cut off all the tags!  It made it much easier to keep track of which side was which.

Can you see the mistake I made?  Yeah.  Make sure both rectangles are facing the right direction before you sew them together!  Oh well.

The straps are made from 4 pieces of ribbon sewn on securely, and cut into a "V" to prevent fraying.  The top of the dress is hemmed with one row of white and then top stitched with two rows of red for some decoration.  

Then I decided to add pockets.  They are made from the top part of the shirt, the one I wasn't sure if I was going to use.  I trimmed the back top of the shirt right next to the seams, and then cut it into a cute shape.  The top of the pocket is made from the collar!  Each pocket is decorated with a bow that matches the straps.  When I was taking the pictures, I noticed that despite my best efforts, the pockets are obviously two different sizes.  The collar top was sewn on higher on the left pocket, making them appear to be very different sizes.  I considered ripping them off and fixing it, but decided to just let them be.  

And the finished dress:

And Lucca got pants!  I traced a pair of her pants over the sleeves and cut it out.  Sewed up the crotch, added an elastic waist and some ribbon at the ankles... voila!  Baby pants from sleeves!

Rainbowy goodness.  Two outfits, one shirt.  Happy day.