Polo, anyone?

This latest refashion began life as an 4XL tall men's polo shirt.  I was drawn to the color, stripes, $2 price tag, and most importantly...amount of fabric to work with!  I cut off the collar and sleeves, then placed it on my dress form backwards.  I didn't want it to necessarily look like a reformed polo shirt, so I placed the button placket in the back.  I switched out the buttons for two black ones found in my stash.

I pinned the sides to the right width and trimmed away the excess.  There was so much fabric left from the sides that, after cutting apart the original side seam stitching,  I was able to make four strips with vertical stripes (two for the front and two for the back.)  Before sewing up the side seams, I made two horizontal cuts along the bottom of the shirt front and back (one at about 5" from the bottom hem, and another at about 8").  I retained the original hem of the shirt for my new dress.  I then inset my vertical-striped strips, along with some black knit piping in the front and back of the dress.   Next, I cut a long strip of black knit and inset it into the side seams.  This served two purposes, one to give the dress more interest, and two, I didn't have to be so precise when matching the front and back stripes and piping!  I finished it off with some black ribbing around the neck and arms. 

After it was finished, I felt the armholes were bigger than I wanted, so a made a little pleat at the top of each sleeve and hand stitched it into place.

It was a windy day for taking pictures, but check out the great leather coat I snagged for $2.00 at a local thrift shop!

Because of the stretch knit, this dress is super comfortable!  At $2.00, it was also very affordable!  I think my favorite part, though, is that the two vertical striped insets disguises the fact that I was trying to lengthen a t-shirt into a dress.  It feels like it was designed that way!

I like to link to these great parties!

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