the Shirt Dress... FAIL!

Project #3, the shirt dress, was a big fat FAIL in my book. I had problems with it from the beginning. The biggest problem, though, was the fabric itself. It was very slippery, and every stitch made big holes in it. When I removed the pockets from the front, it left holes. When I tried to iron down the seams to make the casings for the elastic, they would not stay ironed down. It was one big mess. But I committed to going through the whole process so that I could at least learn how to do it, even though I knew it wouldn't turn out very well.

So, here's Sam's old shirt that I started with.


I didn't take step by step photos, (I'm just not that advanced yet, lol), but here is what it ended up looking like.

In the beginning, I think I cut too much off the top of the shirt, so the dress ended up being shorter than I had planned, although it still looks ok. I sewed the pockets back on the skirt part, which is just about the only thing about my finished product that I liked! I tried the shirring, and that was also a big fat FAIL. I don't know if it's just because the fabric was so hard to work with that it didn't pucker up as I wanted it to, or if it's just because my seamstress skills have much to be desired?!?! I would love it if someone could walk me through the shirring process, because I still want to try it again. Here, I only did about 5 rows because I could see it wasn't working and I didn't want to waste anymore elastic thread.

One last thing, was that there was not enough room in the armpits for Zoe. It is a really tight fit. So even though it looks semi-passable (from a distance), she can't even wear it because it's too uncomfortable.

I'm baring all here... an upclose of the front shirring madness... (I used THIS tutorial). One question... is it supposed to pucker up right away or stay pretty flat? As you do more rows does it start to pucker up more? I even put a steaming iron on it, as the tutorial suggested, but it still didn't work right. I'm so embarassed, it looks so terrible! But there you go. Maybe somebody can give me some tips on how to do it better in the future.

I still have a beautiful dark red dress shirt that I was hoping to turn into a Christmas dress for Zoe, but now I'm a little scared to touch it. I don't want another hot mess. (Does this even qualify as a hot mess???) On the other hand, I'd rather try again on free fabric than spending a lot to buy it until I know I can do it right.