Minimi Project, Dungarees skirt pattern test

I love buying fabric, sometimes I think I sew to be able to buy new fabric. When I see fabric I see possibilities, endless possibilities and need those possibilities in my stash. Due to that desire I have an extensive stash, but besides my big new fabric stash I also have a big pile of clothes to be upcycled. I regularly upcycle clothes, like here, here and here. Upcycling fabric gives an extra type of satisfaction, if you haven't done it yet, try it!

When you are upcycling clothes you often have to be extra creative (yeah!) in how to cut your pattern pieces from the existing garment. I feel that the most satisfying upcyled project not just uses the fabric from the original garment, but some elements of the garment are still recognisable in the new one. This dungarees skirt is a perfect example of that.

A few weeks ago, one of the designers behind the Minimi project placed a testers call on Facebook. The Minimi project already realised a book, and now they are also going into pdf patterns. I did my usual digital wave dance and got the opportunity to test. The pattern is designers for upcylcing a man's shirt into a dungarees dress, but the instructions can also be used to make the dungarees from scratch.

The idea of these dungarees is that you mis-button the shirt and than cut the pattern pieces, this way you create a front pleat. I really love the idea, it is so cleaver! I first planned to use a shirt with stripes, but due to the fact that you cut the pattern vertically I opted for a uni colored version.

When we had to pick a size, there was no size table available and I picked a 86 for my two and a half year old. She usually needs a smaller chest size, but because I couldn't check it, I wanted to be sure that she would fit it for a while. The dungarees are indeed a bit big, I kept the length a bit long as well, this way she can grow in it. Although the chest area is a bit wide, I think it is fine for these dungarees, this way she can really wear a sweater under them in the winter. When the weather will become nicer in spring, she will be able to wear it with a thing shirt under it.

The original shirt had been in a bag for a while and although I ironed the hell out if it, I didn't manage to make it wrinkle free (I know I should have washed it before cutting etc, but I do not have that type of patience). A bit wrinkled is how it will look on her anyway, because she will be allowed to play in it. A wash will do wonders for the wrinkles, but I usually do not dare to wash before I make pictures, Murphy's law and all. Surely there will a new colored garment in that wash, messing up everything, that really almost never happens, but when I am planning to make blog photos, I just do not dare to take the risk.

My sewing machine has all kinds of fun stitches that I never use. I thought this plain fabric would be ideal to decorate with one of those. So besides some brown top stitching, I also stitched little flowers on the the bottom hem.

The pattern is not available yet, but you can put yourself on the list to get informed when they will be. If you can not wait, you could always buy the book to get yourself some upcyling action.

I love to hear what you think of my creations. Feel free to leave a comment in the language you prefer (although Google translate might have to assist me if you choose something different than English, German, Dutch or Hungarian).