How to make a Twofer dress

Ug! I felt like I was drowning in grading and emailing students this week. So, that said, I either wanted to do one of two things: shop for new clothes, or sew something cute. Since money is a bit on the tight side, and I was feeling extra creative, I decided on the later. Enter the "twofer" dress!

What is a "twofer" dress, you ask? Well, it is dress that looks like a skirt and blouse combo. I am a daily (and I mean daily) stalker of modcloth and I drool over their dresses. I find the twofer dresses especially cute, but since I don't have $50+ bucks to shell out over every dress I crave, I decided to try and sew my own.

I made a quick trip to Joann's yesterday afternoon before class an picked out some fabrics that coordinated with a knit shirt from my closet. And JOY! Joann's was having a sale! I got my fabric (1.5 yard for the skirt and 1/2 yard for the belt) for only a little over $7! Add a few spools of thread (also on sale!) and some tailors chalk, my grand total for this project was $10.02!!! WOOT!

So, here is what I did. I first measured my waist and then the distance from my natural waist (where I wanted the skirt to sit) to my knee.

Then I made a really long belt (basically a long tube that I sewed, turned, and sewed the ends in a diagonal)

I then cut two rectangles of fabric for the skirt: width = 2 inches shorter than the circumference of my waist (26") and then the length = the distance from my waist to my knee (25" but I ended up shortening this a lot when I hemmed)

I hemmed the top of each skirt piece and then did eight rows of shirring (see last summer's blog on making an Easy Summer Dress) on each piece. I then sewed each the skirt pieces together (right sides together).

I then sewed the skirt to the shirt. This took a bit of creativity and help from my BFF Candace. She stretched the skirt for me while I safety pinned the shirt to the skirt. After sewing the shirt to the skirt, we hemmed the dress to right at the top of my knee (I just machine sewed the hem).

I tried on the dress and tied the belt in a big, sassy bow! The whole project took me about 3.5 hours and VOILA! Twofer dress! I love it!

A close of up the yummy fabrics! I love this color combo!

This dress is so comfortable! The shirring keeps it close to the body but it is easy to get on and off because of the stretch. I wore my dress today and got a lot of compliments. I have a brown shirt that is the same style as the tourquoise one and I think I am going to make another dress sometime soon!