One of the joys of having two sweet grand daughters is that I get to sew for them! One real challenge about sewing clothes these days is the cost of fabric and patterns. Especially when little ones grow so quickly. One solution I have found to make some unique clothes that are as sweet as my little ones is to make these T-Shirt dresses and diaper covers. As you will see in the first photos I start at the clearance rack! These are all from Kohl’s end of summer clearance selection and even thought the T-shirt says $3.00 I also used my 20% coupon (this was good on everything) and the price came down to between $1.80 and $2.40 per t-shirt and onesie that I bought.
Taking the measurements (especially the overall length of the dress) as a starting point and determining how much of the t-shirt I wanted to have I was then able to cut the fabric for the skirt. All these fabrics were from my stash and a couple were scraps from quilts, bibs, traveling high chair, etc that I had already sewn for my first grand daughter.
I put a 1/2 inch hem in the bottom edge, just pressing up about 3/8 inch and then pressing again and doing a straight top stitch. Next, I gathered the extra fullness (I made my skirt width 1.5 times the width of the top, adding 1 inch for seam allowance so that the skirt was ruffly but not too much so) and pinned it in place. With a stretch stitch (on my machine it is basically a zig-zag type stitch) I carefully sewed the skirt to the top. I then also ran the seam allowance through my serger to trim and overcast the edge. I have also done it on the regular machine with an overcast stitch.
On the onesies I cut the top so that I had enough left to make a diaper cover from the bottom of the onesie. I just used a stretch stitch to make a casing around the elastic. For me, especially since the waist was so little, I made my elastic waistband first. Cutting my elastic to size, plus 1 inch, I sewed the elastic together. Then when I sewed the casing I was sewing it over the elastic at the same time. Just move the fabric along a bit as you sew and keep the fabric flat while sewing.
I am excited to see our second grand daughter wearing all these fun t-shirt dresses too. At five months she will be wearing them come spring and then into fall of next year!
Mimi's This and That 
Cute idea, I love the dresses! Especially for nieces that may be taller than normal so you can adjust the length 🙂