Pillowcase Dress *Refashion*

When we went to visit my father-in-law the other month, my hubby had to clean a lot of things out of his room. When he took out a bunch of old stuff, I saw a pillowcase that looked really bright and colorful. It was a pillowcase he used when he was still living with his dad, and it seemed like a real vintage piece. I loved the floral patterns on it, and immediately thought of turning it into a dress for our 2 year old. Since he was going to throw it away, I claimed it and took it home, washed it, and got to work. 

Usually, if you look up 'pillowcase dress' online, you usually get tutorials with dresses made of pillowcases the LONG way, because that usually works better. But in this case, the pillowcase had distinct horizontal patterns, so I had to think of another plan. I only had this one piece of pillowcase to make a whole dress, so I used all of it; no pieces left! And it was free! Haha...

Here's a diagram and simple instructions to make this super simple elastic dress/swimsuit cover-up.

 

My daughter usually wears size 3T and the dress covers her knees completely. So if you want to size down to 2T, you can either shorten the sleeves or shorten the skirt. You can also make a tunic for size 4T-6T just by adjusting the arm hole size. The structure is very simple so use your own judgement to fit your kid's size :)  If you cut off a couple of pieces from the skirt, you can make two straps and use that instead of the elastic to string through the skirt, and tie them at shoulders to make a sleeveless tunic instead. (It would be too short to be a dress, so tunic it is.) If I do that other version, I'll post it again! Happy summer!