Easy As Pie Dress

I love skirts and dresses and wear them pretty much every day during the summer.  These dresses that look like a shirt and skirt seem like a great middle ground and a wonderful shortcut for those mornings when I have no time and nothing to wear.  Plenty of tutorials have been done about these (Grosgrain, Little Red Roost, Presser Foot has one coming up) and they're so simple you don't even really need one!

I used the standby Freshly Picked skirt tutorial to make mine (I wanted pockets).  I also added a lining, made the same as the skirt without the pockets.  Then it was just a quick two steps to attach the skirt to the elastic and the elastic to the shirt!  I used this great top from Target that I got last weekend (can't find in online).  Most of the other dresses I've seen in this style have been made from tank tops but I prefer real tops especially since I'm looking to add these to my work rotation.

To be completely honest I totally screwed the skirt up the first time I did it.  I didn't want it to be too poofy so I used much less fabric than I should have.  On top of that I lowered the pockets (for absolutely no reason) so I ended up with a too tight skirt with pockets hitting at my upper thigh!  Needless to say I spent a lot of time with the seam ripper, cursing my love of French seams.  Once everything was apart I just added an extra panel to each side, and with the busy pattern you don't even notice the extra seams!

This is definitely a quick and easy way to get a new dress, and even redo an old shirt you don't wear much anymore.  For the next one I want to do something like this (although with a lower waist).  I looked at it at the store and there is (small width) elastic only on the back where the skirt and shirt meet, and the tie is only sewn in on the front.