Meanwhile Back at the Ranch... Tshirt Dresses

Years and years ago, my mom bought adorable Tshirts for the entire family. She got them at "The Merc" which no longer exists as a store; it is now an empty building.  We all wore our ferret Tshirts and they've long been forgotten. This must have been 10 - 15 years ago, I don't even remember.

A few years ago, my mom sent me a Lucille's Cafe Tshirt to make a dress for the girls. I made one, but didn't have another shirt for a dress for the other kid.  I promptly put the second shirt away where I wouldn't lose it and I can't recall where that special place is. Which means I never did turn it into a dress.

I figured I would look around and see if I could find that Lucille's Cafe shirt before we left for our spring break roadtrip. No such luck. But, in looking, I came across two ferret Tshirts!  Now those would be really cute dresses!

I ran to Walmart to buy up some bandanas and use them as ruffles. See how the little ferrets are wearing bandanas? Well, the bandanas were too red, too bold, and too thin. I didn't think I liked them, but I might have to get them since we were running short on time.  Lucky for me, I also found this cute print in the fabric section! It's a softer red and has a bandanaish print; it's called "Farmer Boy" and it's the perfect print to match the ferrets! Bold bandanas went back on the shelf. Done!

Most of the Tshirt dress was sewn in white thread, but the ruffle really needed to be done in red. I finished everything in white except the hem of the ruffles and then I prayed over the serger and the red thread and swore I'd be eternally grateful if the red thread would just go through and the machine would still work.  It did!  Wooo Hoooo!

I finished off the ruffles with a red rolled hem on the serger and the Tshirts were now little dresses.  The little girls should find them quite comfortable and the Grandmas hopefully will notice.  They turned out so cute! I'm happy with them and I promised the girls they could wear them while we were on vacation. I dubbed them the "Saturday dresses" and told the girls they had to wait until the day we go to Wyoming.

The day finally came when we were to go to Wyoming and Gracie changed her mind. She wanted to wear her new jeans I just bought for her the day before. There was no talking her into wearing her Saturday ferret dress. Sigh. Libby wanted to wear her dress, at least one kid will show off for me.

The little girls split up and arrived at Grandma's house at different times. Gracie arrived first and she had time to climb the hill and visit with the Grandmas for a few hours before Libby did. Libby was with me, and I stopped for a long lunch before going to the Grandma's. I met up with them at a restaurant and when we came in and said hello, they were all eating around a big table in the back. Libby took off her jacket and my mom leaped out of her chair and squealed. She loved that little dress!  She tried to take Libby around the restaurant to show people she knew the Tshirt dress, but Libby didn't feel like modeling for strangers.  The other people said they recognized the Tshirt and they all had a nice little moment remembering shopping in The Merc.

Libby was happy that Grandma liked her dress. I was thrilled that Grandma liked her dress!  Libby wore it again on Sunday night and again for the trip home on Monday. Silly me, I thought she would wear it once. Gracie finally wore her dress on Monday and the Grandmas got to see both girls in their matching ferret Tshirt dresses. Now, that was cute!

Color-Blocked Tshirt Dress

Gracie's cute little red-headed friend just turned 5 and had her birthday party. The night before the party, my brain kicks into gear and I realized that I totally forgot to get a gift!  Actually, I have a purple princess sundress cut out in her size and was just going to sew that together for her, but I forgot that I did that too. Forgetting can be disastrous, but in this case it was just an opportunity to get creative and fast.

Recently, I bought some cheap Tshirts at Walmart, some were on clearance and some were just cheap Tshirts from the boy section. I looked through my Tshirt stash and decided to make the birthday girl a dress to play in. I chose a black Tshirt and a bright lime green one. They looked loud and happy together.

I cut the black Tshirt up the sides and gave it an A-line dress shape, then cut sleeves from the lime green.  I cut four strips off the green to be used as a ruffled skirt and sewed it all up on the serger. The serger is complicated to thread and I had white thread in it, so I made a lazy but time saving decision to make this dress with white thread. There won't be any doubt that it is handmade and not from the store!

I don't know if I like the end product. It looked too big even though I cut it down to a size 4.  I feel like the ruffles could have been spaced better and the colors suddenly looked awful by the time I was done. My husband said he loved it and he suggested that maybe I didn't like it because I don't like that color of green. He's right, I don't like this green color one bit. But, it matched and it might look pretty good with her strawberry locks.

When the birthday girl opened her gift, she loved it! I was so glad that she did. I still don't love it, but I'm not going to wear it so my opinion shouldn't really matter. Hopefully it will fit and she can run and play and get dirty in a fun and comfy Tshirt dress.