Ottobre t-shirt to dress modification

 I have a sick amount of patterns, plenty of which are for my daughter, but I didn't have a pattern for a basic empire t-shirt top dress with a gathered skirt. That, however, was easy to remedy.

When I saw this cute monkey fabric at Elegant Stitches, I knew Gracie would want it because she loves her little pink stuffed monkey and this has a certain similarity to it. I had just downloaded the monkey applique and thought this would be cute with it.

When I could not find the pattern I wanted in my stash, I made my own by using the Ottobre t-shirt pattern (from 1/2003 issue - basically the same thing as the Creative Workshop t-shirt pattern). I changed the bottom of the tee to end four inches below her armpit. This would leave a nice amount of space for applique and still be an empire style. I appliqued the design before assembling the t-shirt portion. Then, I cut two panels of my skirt fabric to be double the width of the bodice and 18 inches long (since I had a yard of fabric). I stitched the sides, gathered the skirt and then attached it to the t-shirt. In the full length picture, the hem was serged, but not yet finished. I wanted to try it on her to see where I wanted my final hem. I ended up taking a 3 inch hem.

This was very easy to do and I already plan on doing one or two more for fall. I'm getting ambitious for my next one and digitizing a design from my fabric. As I am still learning the Embird design program, that ought to be interesting.