Badonkadonk

So... I enjoy being a grown up, paying my own bills and getting to come home as late as I want. Unfortunately one of the things that isn't as fun is that you actually age as you get older... Lame. So certain parts of my anatomy have... changed... shall we say? Recently, the circumference of my hips. I'm digging this new big girl body, but my pants and dresses are not. So, one of my favorite dresses will no longer do as a dress, but must be rebuilt better, faster, stronger! Today? We turn it into a shirt! BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA!!!

Is it the rapture?

I want to make it long enough so that it's not a belly shirt, but it's a little tough. The buttoned middle part ends a little too high for my taste, so I had to hem just below it.
This is how the buttoned pieces of fabric are held together.

Hard to see, but Waldo's in here somewhere...

Hard to see, but the flap of fabric is just tucked under itself. So I started tearing out the seams around it to see what shape the fabric was in underneath it.

Just tore it out with my teeth.

There wasn't much fabric to work with, but it's enough as long as you're careful with your sewing.

Pretty gnarly when you start tearing clothes apart.

I cut the extra fabric of the skirt off with an extra few inches to work with.

Wish I could think of something useful for this extra fabric besides "turban".

Aaaand cut right down the middle from the center opening.

I couldn't hem the sides of the opening straight down, there just wasn't enough extra fabric to work with. So I tucked them under and created a little V part.

Kinda looks like an angry, crazy face huh? With jacked up eyebrows?

With an area this small it's much easier to hand sew what you need. So I stitched as close to the edge as possible to match the sewing on the rest of the shirt/dress.

 This is where all my quilting finesse comes in handy.

 Looks messy from the back but better from the front.

So profesh. No dress-bot could do better.

Added a couple of reinforcing stitches to the back so it wouldn't flap open all the time. But I just stitched the heavier pieces of fabric together, so nothing shows from the front.

Not as nice.

 

Much more nice.

Okay you can see one stitch from the front, on the left hand side. But no one's going to be inspecting the hem of my shirt. :)

For the love of God don't drop one of these pins on the floor. You'll never see it again.

Pin the bottom hem of the shirt, using as little fabric as possible so it's still nice and long in the waist.

Had to search the house for an hour to find this iron.

Ironed the hemline before sewing so it stays nice and even while it's going through the machine. I sewed a 1/2 inch hem all along the bottom, sewing back on my stitches at the very start and end of the line to reinforce them.

Like my blinds? Don't act like you're not impressed.

And voila! Now I just have to go on safari.