From Dress to Shirt - Pattern Remix Tutorial

So like promised in yesterday's Mini Hudson Pants post here comes a mini tutorial on how you in a few easy steps can change the original dress pattern from the book Happy Homemade, vol 5 by Ruriko Yamada to this shirt.

Just to be clear you will need the book to make this shirt. I'm only giving you the information to the changes I did.

I had this idea in my idea about a wide shirt that got some extra width from the waist and down with a very subtle ruffle - and by subtle I mean a ruffle that is not gathered a lot (in case you wondered, ha).

W has always loved the very first dress I made for her from a Japanese Pattern book. I made it almost 2 years ago but it actually fits her better now.....in other words it was very big back then even though I made the size she was suppose to be. Oh well.....she has gotten a ton of use out of that dress and I'm not going to complain about that. And besides, it general knowledge that the Japanese patterns are very roomy and I have learned to do fittings along the way now when I sew new ones  (especially over the shoulders). This one has raglan sleeves so no worries about that here.

I made the original dress (Pattern B in the book) back in beginning of 2013. See it HERE.

I knew I wanted this shirt to have long sleeves and the cool thing about Japanese pattern books is that they make it easy to mix and match.
If you look at the pattern sheet you will see that pattern B and D actually use the same sleeve - it's just a matter of tracing the long version instead of the short version. How easy is that!



The pattern comes with the bias covered slit (I also have a tutorial for it HERE) and my own spin is the bias tape tie bands - it matches the neckline which is the original pattern feature. THIS tutorial shows you how I sew bias tape the easy way.
I think I was a bit in a hurry when I made this. I apologize for the wobbly stitching.

As crazy as this photo is it actually shows the shirt quite well, ha.



This is the size 110 (which means it should fit a child that is 110 cm tall (3 ft 7"). I think W is somewhere between 120-130 cm tall (3 ft 11" - 4 ft 3") but like I said earlier the size 110 is perfect for her now - but with length added to the sleeves of course. You will have to do your own measuring there!

I shortened the bodice/dress with 19 cm (7.5") this included seam allowance.

The ruffle is the same height as the original pattern but I made it 4 x 18 cm (7") less wide than the original ruffle pattern (to give that subtle gathering I talked about earlier).
Let me just be sure I make sense here. The reason for the times 4 is because the ruffle pattern is cut to fold and you have to cut two pieces (for front and back). So if you simply make your pattern piece 18 cm (7") less wide, then overall you will make it 4 x 18 cm (7") more narrow. Yes, super simple!

And that's it....everything else is like the original pattern.

Here is a view from the back. And little sister doing magic tricks in the background (??)

The fabric used is this looovely super narrow blue and white stripe shirting that was also used in Willow and Co's first look book.

I'm dying to make this shirt with some double gauze. Could you imagine....uhmmm yes, me too!!

Here is a close up of the gathered neckline finished with a bias tape tie band. All features from the original B pattern from Happy Homemade, vol 5.

And LOOK one front tooth is finally through...that only took like 5-6 months, ha.

That's it. Thank you!

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