How to Sew a T-Shirt Dress

In today’s post: Learn how to make a cute, casual summer dress from a t-shirt pattern – it’s easy!

Well, it’s officially hot here, which means I won’t be wearing my favorite elastic waist pull on jeans for at least three months. (And if you’ve never tried pull on jeans, you’re missing out! They look just like normal jeans but are soooo much more comfortable. I love these ones on Amazon.)

Until the weather corrects itself and it’s not ridiculously hot every day, I’ll be over here living in casual skirts and dresses. To start off the summer, I made a simple t-shirt dress from my free raglan tee pattern.

This is just about the easiest dress I’ve ever made! If you can sew up a t-shirt, you can sew up this dress in no time. All I did was extend the hem down to the knee and sew up a simple tie to cinch it in at the waist. If you like the shift dress look, you don’t even need the tie.

Cut T-Shirt Dress Pattern Pieces

To make a t-shirt dress, you’ll need a t-shirt pattern in your size and about 2 yards of 58 inch wide knit (stretchy) fabric. I used a medium weight spandex knit and my free Raglan Tee pattern which comes in a women’s size Large (38 inch bust).

Click here to download the Raglan Tee pattern in size L

Click here to visit the raglan tee post 

Be sure to wash and dry your fabric before you begin.

You will need 2 yards of fabric. Cut it into one piece that is 1 and 1/3 yard long and a second piece that is 2/3 yard long. Follow the cutting diagrams below to cut out the pieces needed for your dress. Please note that you will add 15 inches of length to the tee pattern to turn it into a dress, and slightly angle out the side seam so the bottom of each folded dress pieces is 12.25 inches wide, as shown below.

You will cut one dress front on the fold and one dress back on the fold from the larger piece of fabric. Then from the smaller piece cut out two sleeves, using the short sleeve option, as well as a strips of fabric for the neckbinding and another for the tie.

How to Sew a T-Shirt Dress

Construction for the t-shirt dress is exactly the same as it is for the raglan t-shirt. If you don’t know how to sew up a raglan tee, visit this post for detailed instructions.

Finish the t-shirt dress, including binding the neckline and hemming the sleeves and bottom edge.

Make the Tie Belt

You can finish off your t-shirt dress with a simple tie belt. Grab your long strip of fabric (4 inches high by 58 inches wide). Fold it in half lengthwise, right sides together, and sew it to itself along all the raw edges, leaving an opening about 3-4 inches wide, as shown below.

Turn the belt inside out and press it flat, tucking the extra fabric along the opening inside. Topstitch close to the edge, sewing the opening closed. You can topstitch with a zig zag stitch to make sure the tie stretches, or you can use a straight stitch but stretch the tie as you sew it. That will make the edge a little wavy; you can iron it with plenty of steam to get it to lay flat.

Tie the belt around the waist and your new summer dress is done!