inside: Turn a sweatshirt into a dress with this fun sewing tutorial. Grab a sweatshirt and some coordinating fabric and turn it into a dress with this DIY sewing tutorial. Fun and easy upcycle fashion.
I’ve been wanting to turn a sweatshirt to a dress for awhile now. This simple sweatshirt to dress sewing tutorial is a fun sewing project that works with any sweatshirt in any size. I made this dress for my 12 year old daughter, but this could be made for adults as well. You will need some fabric that coordinates with your sweatshirt and a sweatshirt with a bottom band {or be able to add a bottom band}
Sweatshirt dress sewing tutorial
It’s been a warmer winter here in Colorado so far, but it’s finally getting cold and now I want all the cozy clothes! This sweatshirt dress is so super cozy and a perfect winter outfit. I like to grab sweatshirts on clearance {this one is from Walmart last year, I think}. I also happened to have this fun fabric that coordinates perfectly in my stash, so it was a match made in heaven, or my fabric bin, {haha}
The beauty of this tutorial is that you don’t have to touch the sweatshirt, you just make up a skirt that fits it, and sew them together. Rose did ask about pockets in this dress, and if I had enough skirt fabric, I would have added a kangaroo style pocket to the top, that would have been so cute to bring the whole thing together.
The skirt fabric is French terry that I’ve had for awhile. I’m pretty sure Max had knit shorts made from it, but I can’t find a photo {and if there’s not a photo it never happened!} But I still think it did, anyway, I had this fabric for awhile, but it happened to be a perfect match. I added two tiers, but you could do just one as well for a shorter look!
How to turn a sweatshirt into a dress
Ok! Let’s make a sweatshirt dress! You will need a sweatshirt and then some coordinating fabric, I would suggest sweatshirt fleece or French terry. I had around 1 yard of fabric and it worked for this size. You may need more for a larger size.
Measure the bottom of of the sweatshirt at the top of the bottom band. This will be the width for the top of the skirt.
Next, cut the fabric into the tier{s} for the skirt. Mine were 11″ x about 36. Some were longer.. it was a scrap, so not an even cut.
To determine your tiers, you want the top one to be about 1.5 times the width of the sweatshirt bottom {that you measured above}. The second tier should be about 1.5 times the width of the first tier. If you have a large sweatshirt, you may need more that the width of the fabric for your tiers.
I had a front and back to each skirt piece, so at this point you need to sew and skirt tiers into a circle. Sew the sides, or back seam on the narrow ends. I am using a serger for all these seams, but you can also use a zig-zag if no serger.
Here I’m showing we will gather the top tier to match the sweatshirt, and the second tier to match the bottom of the first one.
Gather the top of the first tier. Need help with gathering? Here’s my full tutorial on all the ways you can use to gather fabric. Once you have the top layer gathered to fit, tie off the threads. Repeat by sewing a gathering stitch on the top of the second layer.
Pull the threads to gather the second tier to match the bottom of the first tier.
At this point I clipped the two tiers together in the middle and sewed them to finish the skirt. Sew with a serger or a zig-zag.
Now it’s time to sew the skirt to the sweatshirt. Begin by lining up the side seams of the skirt and the top. If you just have one back center seam, I would align that with the back middle of the sweatshirt.
With the right side of the skirt and sweatshirt facing up toward you, pin the top, gathered edge of the skirt to the underside of the sweatshirt. I pinned it right along the seam of the band.
The band of the sweatshirt should not be tacked down, this will give the appearance of it being over the skirt. Pin the skirt all the way around.
This is a loose sweatshirt and this seam doesn’t need to stretch, so I used a straight stitch on my sewing machine to sew right on the previous stitches above the band. This makes the seam almost invisible and a perfect place to attach the skirt. The band should still flip up. Sew very slow to make sure the gathers are straight. {I had to redo an inch or so where the gathers got caught up in the seam.}
Remove any of the gathering stitches from the tiers for a smooth gathered look. This will also give the dress back its stretch. The gathering when pulled, it tight, so you want to remove those stitches. Turn up a 3/4″ hem on the bottom of the skirt.
Sew with a coverstitch or sewing machine to hem the skirt.
Here’s a close up of the final result… it’s just so so cute and I think I need one in my size now! A cute crop sweatshirt would be so perfect for a dress like this.
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