Shirt Dress to Peplum Top Refashion
Happy Sunday! I’ve been busy with sewing projects and finally took a little time for a new refashion! Usually I post refashions on Friday’s but this one is done and I didn’t want to wait until next Friday to share!
I bought this shirt dress secondhand on ThredUp awhile back. I fell in love with the color and was happy to see the size was in petite, so it should really fit. When it arrived, I still loved the color but I wasn’t thrilled with how it looked on me – it felt a little boring. I kept it in my closet for a bit, hoping I would be inspired to wear it, but it just sat there. I really wanted to wear this piece and didn’t want it sitting in my closet any longer so I decided to refashion it! I knew making it into a top would guarantee me wearing it often, and I turned to a previous refashion for a little inspiration.
Back in February, I did a very similar refashion of turning a dress into a peplum top, and I loved how easy the process was, I wanted to do something similar for this top. I had this dress from Zara pinned as inspiration for a long time now, because I really loved how the peplum was connected to the bodice, giving it more of a layered look than just straight sewn on and wanted to recreate that detail with this top. It wasn’t a hard process, and I have the steps down below!
- If you have a dress with an uneven hem, you will have to even it out.
- Mark where you want your waistline to be. For me, it was right where the button placket ends. From this point, measure down 1″. Measure this point to the end of your even hem. Mine measured 14.5″. Use this measurement to continue to mark the top of the dress where your waistline will be cut.
- Seam rip one side seam up to your new waistline and cut the bottom half off your dress. If you have an uneven dress hem, you can also cut off the hem.
- On the bottom half of your dress, measure the halfway point, mark and cut. With right sides together, stitch one side together creating one long strip of material. Gather this strip to the length of your dress top. Once your strip is gathered, stitch strip ends right sides together and set aside.
- On the top of your dress, fold the bottom up 1″ around the entire hemline. This fold will be very helpful later on.
- With right sides together, stitch your gathered bottom to your top hem. I like to divide the gathered piece in 4ths, to properly align the sides and centers.
- Fold the waist on the foldline from before, tucking the gathering under. I pinned on the front for show, and then switched my pins to the wrong side to sew. Stitch this with about a 1/4″ seam allowance, just enough to catch the waistline and gathering.
- Complete the waist by topstitching just the folded edge, making sure not to stitch the bottom peplum.
- Lastly, hem your peplum! I did a 1/2″ hem since my dress wasn’t long to begin with.
I love how this top came out and it is going to get so much wear in my wardrobe! The last step I wanted to do was to add buttons to the top pockets but I don’t have any matching ones at the moment. The pockets don’t need them, but I think they would be a cute touch. I photographed this top with the sleeves cuffed but it looks cute with the sleeves long as well!
I also created a video tutorial! Check it out below! (Music is Voyage by Ikson Music)
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Really cute!
Hi Trish, Hope you take this as constructive criticism because the idea is a good one. Peplums are one of those strange design features that can make a woman look great or totally out of proportion. If you do this again, where the ruffle is sewn should sit on top of your pelvic bone or where your body curves in. The top should also be cut to curve in a bit which will cinch the look and not make it look boxy. You will also have to cut the ruffle to make it in proportion to adding length to the top. If you Google peplums and proportion to the body you will understand.