Tank Top Dresses

I am constantly being inspired by Alexis at mymamamadeit, and one thing she's always doing is making cute little girl clothes out of old cast-off adult clothing. I finally decided to go through my closet the other day and find all those shirts and things that would fit "some day", and make them over into cuter things. Unfortunately, I don't have "before" pictures of these two, but they were tank tops I had in my closet that seemed to shrink every time I pulled them out.

This was an off-white ribbed sweater-type tank to begin with. I took in the sides, shortened the straps. Then I used some brown tweed fabric I had from a previous project that I had butchered (always save your scraps!!) to make a ruffle skirting piece on the bottom, and covered the ugly seems with some thick brown bias tape. Then I trimmed the top with a thinner tape, and hand-sewed some buttons on the side, and viola! A little sweater dress for this fall. I can't wait for her to wear it!

This was a tank top I bought on clearance a couple of years ago at Macy's (never buy things just because they're cheap), but I always felt like I looked like a teenager in it, so in the closet it sat.  This dress was so easy to make! I sewed up the back to make it smaller, shortened the straps, and used the extra fabric that I cut off the back to make the ruffles on the front. It was so quick! I especially love how the back goes down in the center where the seams meet.