How to Sew a T-Shirt Dress Inspired by Uniqlo's Minimalist Designs
I just finished making a basic t-shirt dress, inspired by Uniqlo's minimalist designs and wanted to show it to you. Follow along with this tutorial to learn how to easily sew a t-shirt dress for yourself.
This t-shirt dress is very versatile – you can wear it as a casual dress, or you can accessorize it to make it fancier. The whole dress is made from just five pieces, using a free downloadable t-shirt pattern.
Tools and materials:
- Stretchy jersey fabric
- Downloadable t-shirt pattern
- Long dress for pattern length
- Fabric marker
- Scissors
- Sewing pins
- Sewing needle
- Thread
- Sewing machine
1. Cut your t-shirt dress pattern
Download the free t-shirt pattern or use a t-shirt you have as a pattern guide.
If you are making your own pattern, follow the instructions in the video from 0:58 to 2:48 for instructions.
Fold your fabric twice and place your bodice piece on the fold.
Then lay a basic narrow A-line dress on top of the bodice piece to be a guide for the length of your t-shirt dress.
Cut out the full dress piece. You should have two pieces: a front and a back. Shape the front neckline to the size you want.
2. Sew the shoulder seams
With right sides facing, pin the front and back pieces together at the shoulders, and sew the shoulder seams.
Tip: Sewing stretchy jersey fabric can take some practice. Be careful that you don’t pull or stretch the fabric as you are feeding it through your sewing machine.
3. Add the sleeves
With right sides together, pin and sew the sleeves to the underarms of the dress, aligning the center of the sleeves to the shoulder seams.
4. Sew the underarm and side seams
Pin and sew the underarm seam from the armpit to the sleeve hem, and then sew the side seam, also starting at the armpit and going to the bottom of the dress. Repeat on the other side.
5. Hem the sleeves and bottom of the t-shirt dress
Fold in the sleeve and bottom hems about ½ inch and sew the hems close to the raw edges with a zigzag stitch.
6. Sew the neckband
Cut a strip of fabric with the stretch going horizontally along the strip. Make the strip 85% as long as your dress neckline and add seam allowances on both short edges. Sew the strip along the short edges to make a loop.
Fold the loop in half lengthwise, and, with right sides facing, pin or baste the raw edge of the neckband loop to the neckline of the dress, lining up the neckband seam to the center back of the dress and the front-center of the neckband to the front-center of the neckline on the dress. Press the neckband to the inside of the dress.
How to sew a t-shirt dress
Here is the final dress. You can wear it loose or with a belt. It hangs beautifully, and once you get the knack of working with jersey fabric, you’ll love making clothes from it because it’s so comfortable to wear.
I hope you try this DIY t-shirt dress tutorial and let me know how you liked it by leaving a comment.
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Great look