Easy tee shirt midi dress sewing tutorial

In today’s post: Learn how to turn a t-shirt pattern into a midi length dress perfect for spring.

Time for another dress! I usually sew maxi dresses for myself because they’re my favorite, but the weather is warming up and I wanted something a little lighter, so I this week I whipped up a midi length dress. I used my free classic tee pattern as the base for this extremely easy-to-sew dress.

I found some more floral brushed polyester spandex fabric on Etsy – I love this stuff! It’s the same type of fabric that I used for the classic tee maxi dress, just in a different color. It’s lightweight without being clingy and it’s also extremely soft.

This dress was super easy to sew. I simply added length to the classic tee pattern and added some elastic around the waistline and that was it!

I kept the curved hem from the tee shirt pattern which I think turned out pretty cute.

To make this dress, you’ll need 2 yards of 60 inch wide knit (stretchy) fabric. Wash and dry  your fabric before beginning.

You’ll need to go to the classic tee post to download the free pattern in women’s size large. Print it out at 100% or full size. Butt the pages together and tape them without overlapping, then cut out the pattern. If you are not a size large, you could trace an easy fit tee to make your own pattern.

To make a dress instead of a shirt, you’ll need to make a few alterations (as shown in the photo above). I added about 18 inches of length to the shirt pattern, as well as angling the side seam out a bit. I cut the sleeves about 4 inches longer than the elbow length pattern as well to make 3/4 length sleeves. I also cut neckbinding as directed on the pattern.

You’ll sew the dress up the same way as directed in the classic tee tutorial. You can finish the neckline and hem the sleeves. It will look like this:

Then you can try the dress on and wrap a piece of 1/2 inch wide elastic around your waist. Move the elastic up and down to decide where you want the waistline of the dress to be, and mark it with pins.

Then you’ll attach the elastic to the inside of the dress. You can use a zigzag stitch, as directed in this girl’s dress tutorial. Or you can use two rows of straight stitches, as shown in this tutorial.

Then hem the dress by turning up the bottom 1 inch and sewing with a double needle (or other stitch that will stretch).

Done!