Up-cycled dress for my Little Miss

I always enjoy searching and finding new blogs to add to me reading list, since becoming a whole lot more interested in sewing lately I have been on the hunt for inspiration, help, tutorials and ideas.
I became filled with utter delight when finding I Am Momma -hear me ROAR, Cheri is a talented Mother full of creative idea's ,lovely designs,tips and tutorials....YAY!
Upon finding her blog a few weeks back, I have had fun reading back though her older posts and finding lots of inspiration in many area's of creativity and it's always nice when I see there is a new post to read :)

I had no doubt in my mind when seeing THIS post that it would make a perfect first dress to make for my own Little Miss.
The tutorial was so easy looking, using old T-shirts and up-cycling them to create a unique and funky dress. I loved the way the seams where on the outside, giving the dress a messy rough look, almost as if it had cute little frills on the outside due to where the seams were placed.

My Thalia is quite a girly girl with a streak of tom boyishness, she is the one that always wears a little bit of bling, adores anything pink, gets ubber excited when it's time to do her hair and pick a hair clip, loves pretty things, has loads of "children" (dolls, babies, teddy, little people), Sings with great joy, twirls to see her dress/skirt fan out, already has a thing for nail polish and quite a collection of hand bags. Sure she oozes girly but on the other hand she loves getting dirty, Queen of the mess, enjoys anything cars, eats like a man, loud and never ceases to amaze me when I see her petite little frame in dare devil mode.

So with this dress the potential of having a messy patchy look matched with girly materials and frills was just the thing I could see Thalia wearing, be it on a play date, out in the garden or dancing.

On finding a few t-shirts at a sale at the shops lately with this dress in mind I got to work.
I have only made one up cycled dress so far (for next years cooler months) due to finding an adorable size 3 shirts for $7 new!

I went through my own wardrobe and put aside tops I no longer wear, tops with holes, tops I have grown out of and placed them in a bag to be up cycled, something I hadn't thought of doing before starting this sewing journey. After some matching and cutting of two of my own old shirts this is what I came up with...

Before the sewing started.
The green material from a shirt of mine that had a hole in it,
but I adored the colour and feel of the fabric.
You can't see it well in this photo but that other fabric is
grey with a tiny blue floral pattern.
I love stripes and thought since I had enough material
I would only use these materials instead of using multiple fabrics.

 Since I still had some left over fabric from my tops
I thought it would be nice to add some extra detail.
Using both the fabrics and tracing around a flower shaped cookie cutter,
I made a design to hand stitch to the top of the dress,
 giving it that bit more girly appeal as well as some hand stitched love.

here is my cheeky girl trying on Mummy's newest creation!
 Although it doesn't quite fit right now you get the idea,
hopefully it will be a nice fit next year in the cooler months.

Thanks again to Cheri of I Am Momma -hear me ROAR
for the inspiration!!!