High-Low Hem Tunic Refashion

In less than 2 weeks, we will celebrate my daughter's 5th birthday! So as a countdown to her birthday, all month long I will share posts featuring clothes I've sewn for her over these wonderful year. Today I'm sharing a tunic I made for her by refashioning an old dress of mine.

I've been refashioning the clothes that I just can't seem to let go, even though I haven't worn them in years... many years. Although I've made numerous trips to Goodwill and donated many large bags full of clothes, I still have so many clothes lingering around. Several years ago, I bought a black, purple, gray, and teal dress from Wet Seal. Wet Seal was one of my favorite stores when I was in my late teens and early 20s.  I think I may have worn the dress a few times with leggings, but eventually a whole developed near the collar. Thus, it became a house dress.  Since I still loved the fabric, I decided to refashion it into something for my daughter.  And what a process that was! Here are some pictures from my sewing adventure:

I didn't use a pattern to transform the dress into a high-low hem toddler tunic.  I used one of my daughter's 2T tunics as a guide for making the bodice of the new tunic.  I used my yellow tailor's chalk to trace around the tunic onto the wrong side of the fabric, and I traced around a little larger for the seam allowance.  I doubled up the fabric, and sewed the pieces together.  Then I flipped the pieces inside out.

I decided to add buttons to the back of the tunic.  I found some purple buttons in my button stash, and I used my handy dandy button hole maker.  Another sewing blogger once told me that I should always sew around the button hole twice.  That is such great advice! I sewed the buttons on by hand.  

I zigzag stitched the parts of the bodice together.  Then I cut a rectangular piece for the bottom of the tunic, and I stitched a gathering stitch around the top.  I ironed the bodice piece, and then sewed the bodice and the bottom together. 

I cut the bottom to create the high-low hem, pinned it, and then sewed it.  I decided to add some ruffles to the front of the tunic, so I used some scrap fabric from the dress to create ruffles.  The last thing I did to this tunic was I hand sewed the lacy crochet piece onto the neck line.  It really pops!

Ta-da!  All Done!  I am extremely happy with this sewing project.  I think it turned out really well, especially since I did not use a pattern.  This tunic looks really cute on my daughter.  I was a little sad that I wasn't able to get the pattern of the fabric to line up perfectly in the back, but that's one of the drawbacks of refashioning/upcycling; the amount of fabric I had to work with was really limited.

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It's so much fun making something old new again! I'm going to check my closet for something else to refashion soon! Thanks for reading!