Button-front Shirt Refashion #3

This refashion uses three shirts, technically. I made a dress with the upper portion of a white shirt, the lower portion of a red silk shirt, and a strip of fabric from the lower portion of a black shirt.
I took inspiration from pictures of color-block dresses, which are quite trendy right now, I suppose.


The construction of the bodice is much the same as the process I used to make the peplum top. I kept the pretty embroidered collar and cut the armholes a bit differently, however. For the skirt, I cut off the arms and upper chest of the red silk shirt and gathered the top edge to fit the bodice. I tried it on and decided it was MUCH to short to leave it that way unless I wanted a tunic, so I thought for a while and did some test pinning before I came up with the final design. I cut the remaining piece between the arms from the red shirt, a strip the same width from the black shirt, and sewed them together. Now I gathered the black fabric to fit the bottom edge of the red skirt (which I had trimmed to make one length) and sewed it together. I serged the bottom edge of the skirt for ease, and finished the armholes with bias strips cut from the sleeves of the white shirt.

The original shirt, minus one arm

The arms were a pain to remove. The seams had been serged, stitched AND topstitched…ugh

And here is the bodice portion fitted and ready for the skirt.

Here is the back

Side view

Front view. It doesn't open all the way down because there was an awkward gap in the button spacing when I sewed the bottom band on. So I stole the last button from the red shirt and sewed it on through both layers. It's the third button from the bottom.