My sister-in-law had some clothes she was getting rid of, namely some too-big but very cute smocked tank tops. They were in perfectly good condition, so I took them. There's a green, a blue, a brown, and a white one. I'm not sure what I'll do with all of them, but this is what I did to the brown one.
The blue one is yet unaltered, but check out the cute brown sundress for Eleanor!
She is at this funny stage where she really likes showing us how huge her mouth is!
I made the back cross because I could and I like the detail.
To make this dress, all I did was measure how wide I wanted the top to be and the length. Then I cut that out of the front (I did make it a-line-ish). Because the front was already gathered, I cut the back out in the same shape only bigger. Then I threaded some corded elastic through the already exisiting piping around the top so that it gathered a little and would fit snuggly. I clipped off the original straps and stitched them on after I first did a length and placement check on Ellie. I put a ruffle around the bottom by clipping of the waistband on the original tank, trimming it to the right side and then gathering it on my machine (the easiest way to gather is by setting the stich length at its longest and the tension at its highest). The pin and stitch secure! I had a little thread issue on the front of the dress when I put on one of the straps, so I covered it up by gathering together some of the leftover ruffle fabric into a flower and sewing it on. I love it!
Now, what to do with the other tanktops? I don't want to use them only for Ellie (which means I want something from them...)
