How to Make a Dress Out of a Shower Curtain & an Old Shirt

Tools and materials:

• Pullover shirt
• Fabric shower curtain
• Sewing pins
• Scissors
• Sewing chalk
• Sewing machine
• Bias tape (optional)

1. Resize your old shirt

Put on your old shirt and tie a ribbon around your waistline. Now place safety pins in your shirt at that waistline mark. Mark the waistline all the way around your shirt because you may want it higher in the front than the back.

Tip: Have a friend insert the pins in your shirt because if you bend over to mark the waistline, you will change the position of the ribbon.

I wanted to change the neckline of my shirt from a rounded neckline to a V-neck. If you also want to do this, place pins on the shirt to mark your new neckline.

Once you’ve placed the pins on your shirt, turn the shirt inside out and mark the waistline on the wrong side with chalk with a complete line all around. Then you can remove your waistline safety pins. 

Check that your side seams below the waistline are the same measurement to ensure your shirt will be symmetrical. Adjust the line as necessary.

Add a ½-inch seam allowance below the waistline. If your waistline chalk line has any hard angles where it transitions from shorter to longer, the seam allowance chalk line is a good place to smooth out those angles.

Cut off the excess fabric below the seam allowance.

Draw the neckline lines onto the wrong side of your shirt, and then draw a ½-inch seam allowance above the first line. Cut out the V-neck on the upper seam allowance line.

Turn in the V-neck on the seam allowance line and sew, then iron the neckline hem. If you need to clean up the neckline, go ahead and bias-bind it. 

2. Make the skirt of the dress

Cut your fabric shower curtain in half lengthwise and then sew the two pieces together on both short so that you have one large circle of fabric.

You will gather the waist of the skirt to fit the waist of the shirt, and to do so you need the skirt to be double the width of your shirt. If you have too much skirt fabric, adjust the side seams accordingly.

Baste two rows of stitches on the edge of your shower curtain fabric. One row needs to be close to the edge, and the other row should be outside your seam allowance.

Pull the loose threads of your stitch rows to gather the edge of the fabric. You might find it easiest to gather halfway in one direction, then pick up the other loose thread and gather the other half of the fabric in the other direction.

You can keep checking the width of the skirt fabric against the width of the top to see if you need to gather more or loosen the gathers.

With right sides facing, pin the gathered skirt to the bottom of the shirt lining up the center front and center back. Check that your gathers are even all around the skirt.

Sew the skirt and shirt together.

How to make a dress out of a shower curtain

Here’s my finished dress made out of a shower curtain! I hope you’ll try this thrift flip dress yourself and let me know how it turned out.

You can also leave a comment to let me know if any details from this tutorial need further explanation. Enjoy your shower curtain dress!