How to Upcycle a Dress Into a Cute DIY Top

Hey guys! I’m so excited to show you how to turn an upcycled dress into a lovely shirt. This DIY top I made came out so great. I’m going to take you through my process so you can upcycle old clothes of your own.

Tools and materials: 

• Old dress
• Scissors
• Pinking shears
• Pins
• Sewing machine

1. Cut the length

First, figure out how long you want the top to be and cut the dress to that length. Cut the bottom off. Then fold the hem and sew it under.

2. Cutting bottom for sleeves

Lay the bottom part of your dress as flat as possible. Smooth it out with your hands to make sure it’s laid completely flat. Then cut off the top half. 

You will use the bottom half for sleeves. The nice thing about using the bottom half of the dress for the sleeves is that the hem will be the perfect finished edges for the sleeves.

Open up the side seams and you will have 2 equal pieces of fabric.

3. Making sleeves

Take 1 of the pieces and fold the length in half with the right sides facing in. Then stitch along the edge to create the tube for the sleeve.

Do the same with the 2nd piece of fabric. You can cut off the excess fabric from inside the sleeve with pinking shears. Shears are great if you don’t have a serger.

Lay your sleeves on top of each other with all the edges lined up perfectly. Make sure the hem is at the bottom and the sheared edges are on the right.

Then lay the shirt on the sleeves and use the armhole as a template to shape the sleeves.

Line up the bottom edge of the armhole with the lower half of the sheared side and the top of the armhole with the top edge of the sleeve.

Cut out the excess fabric. 

4. Connecting the sleeves

With the shirt inside out, put the sleeve, with the right sides facing in, inside the armhole.

Match the bottom seam of the sleeve with the bottom seam of the armhole. Line the fabric all the way around the inside of the armhole and sew it together. 

Then cut the excess fabric from the inside of the sleeve.

DIY top from an upcycled dress

I love upcycling clothes into something brand new. I hope you give this DIY upcycling idea a try. Leave me a comment to let me know how it goes.

What do you think of this upcycle project? Share your thoughts in the comments down below.

Next, check out these 3 Stunning Ways to Upcycle a Vintage Doily.