Spring Dress using a Vintage Sheet: a tutorial

In honor of the first of April – a favorite flashback post. Perhaps this will inspire you to make a new Easter dress. And because it’s so quick – you can easily do it before Sunday! It’s a super-quick dress-refashion using a vintage sheet from the thrift store. I’ve been collecting vintage sheets for a while now and what better way to use one, than for a new dress for spring!

Because we’re using vintage sheets we can make this really quickly by using the finished edges of the sheet as the hems of the dress. You need to find a sheet that is long enough when folded in half horizontally to be the desired length of your dress. If it’s a large sheet, cut the width of the sheet to the size you like, depending on how full you want your dress to be. I measured my wingspan from wrist to wrist to decide how wide I wanted to make my dress.

Believe it or not, this dress only requires two seams! Easy Peasy!

After you’ve folded your sheet in half horizontally, pin the open sides and sew them together, leaving about a 6″ opening at the top where your hands/arms will come through.

Now to make the hole for your neck, find the center of your dress by taking the sewn dress and folding in half again, this time lengthwise, so that the side seams match up. Make a neat little cut at the center point depending on how wide you want you neckline and how big your head is. I didn’t even bother to stitch around the edges – just a nice raw edge to give some edginess to balance out the floral motif.

And VOILA!!! You are ready to go!

I choose this sheet in part because it already had a ruffle on one edge which makes a lovely decorative hem. As you know, ruffles are HOT right now. And this dress screams HOT doesn’t it?

Throw on a belt and you’ve got a whole different look. So versatile! This is a Maxi dress to the Max. You could make this same dress out of a nice bright polyester or velour, wear it with some serious gold jewelry and unleash your inner- Mrs. Roper.

Or just stick with the original and actually look like a walking vintage sheet itself.

People may even come up to you and ask where you got your vintage sheet so that they can copy your chic-vintage-retro-upcycled-look. Just don’t tell them where you actually got it. Leave them guessing because there is getting to be a serious vintage sheet shortage out there. We don’t need new band-wagon-vintage-sheet hunters coming in and diluting the available inventory, right?

I hope you enjoy this new project to add to your to-do list! Happy First of April!

(APRIL FOOLS!)