I found this floral, summery dress at the thrift store and I just had to buy it because I loved the design and flowy feeling of the fabric. My husband and I are going to Hawaii in a couple weeks for a belated honeymoon, so this fabric gave me thoughts of crop tops and shorts on a beach!

Here’s the final outfit; it’s worthy of a beach vacation, I think:

I love the way this turned out, but for my body shape and style, I wouldn’t wear such a short cropped top with low-rise shorts. I originally wanted to make the shorts high-waisted but there wasn’t enough material; so if you want high-rise shorts I would advise you to use a dress that’s a little longer.

That being said, I’ll definitely get lot’s of wear out of both the shirt and the shorts, just probably not together!

So, let’s get started with the tutorial!

What you need:

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Instructions:

Making the top:

First we’re going to make the crop top. Try on the dress and mark about 1 inch below where you want your crop top hem to be. Then take the dress off, lay it out flat, and draw a straight line through the mark you made.

Now you can cut the top off the dress by cutting along the line you drew, going through both the front and back layers of fabric.

Now you can set aside the skirt part of the dress to work with later.

Next, try on the top and use your fabric marker to draw out the armhole design you want. You only have to do this on one side because we’ll fold it in half to cut both sides together. I did this on my dress form, but you can do this while wearing it, or just eyeball it.

Now cut along the line you drew, leaving about 1/2 inch beyond the marking for seam allowance.

Fold the shirt in half with the front sides to the inside and trace the same shape on the other front side. Then fold it the other way (back to the inside); and trace the shape of the back armhole.

Now cut around the other armhole to get something like this:

Now all we have to do to finish the cropped top is finish the armholes and hem! I started with the hem. To do this, I did a rolled hem; I folded up about 1/4 inch along the raw edge and then folded it over again to hide the raw edges in the middle of the hem.

Once it’s pinned in place, sew all the way around the hem to hold it in place, then iron it flat.

Next, we need to finish the armholes! I wasn’t able to get a rolled hem to lie flat around the armhole curves so I just serged the raw edges and then folded it over once (about 1/2 inch) and sewed along the edge. I then gave everything a final ironing for a crisp, finished look.

Note: if you have trouble getting it to lie flat around the curves while pinning, you can clip the seam allowance fabric with scissors to help it lie flat.

And that’s the top, done!

Making the shorts:

First, a quick disclaimer: My shorts have seams running in random directions across them because the dress I used had panels, so when I cut my shorts pattern the seams from the panels ended up in my shorts. So this would work best if you don’t use a paneled dress. I just decided to go with it because with the busy print and flowy look of the shorts, I didn’t think it would be super noticeable!

Now let’s grab that skirt we cut off the dress and make some shorts!

First, grab a pair of shorts out of your wardrobe that you like the fit of. We’re going to use these as a guide to cut our pattern pieces.

Fold your shorts in half with the front to the inside of the fold. Lay them down on your fabric.

Trace around them to get the pattern for your back shorts piece. Make sure when you trace the outer leg side you stretch the elastic and trace them at the widest point so your shorts aren’t too tight. I also added some extra length to the legs because the shorts I traced are shorter than I like.

Now just cut this piece out, cutting about 1/2 inch from your tracing for seam allowance.

Now lay this piece you just cut out down on your fabric with right sides together and cut around it to get a second back piece that is the mirror image of the first one.

Next, fold your shorts the other direction (with the back to the inside of the fold) and lay them down on your fabric. Use the same procedure you used for the back pieces to cut two front pieces. The most important thing is to make sure you stretch the elastic towards the outer leg when you are tracing your shorts.

Next we need to cut our waistband pieces. To do this measure the length of the waist on ONE of your front pieces.

Cut a rectangle out of what’s left of your fabric that is 3 inches x ((front waist measurement x 2)-1). For example, if you measured one of your front pieces and the waist was 10 inches, your front waistband piece will be 3 inches x 19 inches.

Now repeat this process to cut a back waistband piece that is 3 inches x ((back waist measurement x 2)-1). I didn’t have enough fabric left to cut my back waistband all in one piece, so I cut mine in two halves and sewed them together in the center (so my back waistband has a center back seam). Like this:

If you have enough material though, it would be best to just cut one piece for the back waistband.

At this point I would recommend that you finish all your raw edges with a serger, zigzag stitch, or pinking shears to prevent fraying. I didn’t do this…. but I should have!

Now lets sew your shorts together!

First, pin one front piece to one back piece along the outer leg seam, right sides together. Sew all the way down the outer leg seam, then press seam allowances open.

Now repeat to attach the other front and back pieces at the outer leg seam.

Next, take one of your leg pieces and pin the front to the back at the inner leg seam. Sew this seam down and press seam allowances open. You can see my front inner leg was quite a bit shorter than my back piece; so I just lined them up and the top and ended up trimming the excess off the back before hemming the shorts at the end.

Repeat this to connect the other leg at the inner leg seam.

Next, turn one leg inside out while the other is right sides out. Insert the right sides out leg into the inside out leg and pin all the way around the U-shaped crotch seam. Make sure to match up the inner leg seams in the center. Sew this crotch seam and press your seam allowances open.

You’ll end up with something like this:

Now let’s complete the waistband.

First, pin the front waistband to the back waistband at the two side seams, with right sides together. Sew these seams and press your seam allowances open.

Next, pin the waistband to the waist of the shorts with right sides together. Make sure to match the side seams of the waistband with the side seams of the shorts. Sew the waistband to the shorts.

Next, press the seam allowances up towards the waistband. Your shorts will now look like this:

Next, to hide the raw edges of the waistband, iron 1/2 inch under along the entire top edge of the waistband.

Now fold the waist band in half towards the inside of the shorts and pin the folded edge just below the seam attaching the waistband to the shorts. This will hide all the raw edges inside the waistband.

Then flip the shorts right sides out and stitch down the waistband edge by stitching inside the same seam that attaches the waistband to the shorts (called stitching in the ditch). This will hide your seam so it isn’t visible from the outside. Sew most of the way around but leave a 1-2 inch opening to insert the elastic.

Here’s the opening I left in the waistband:

Next, measure your elastic around your hips to a comfortable tightness. Trim the elastic to the right length, plus about 1 inch for seam allowance.

Then attach a safety pin to one end of the elastic.

Insert the safety pin end of the elastic into the hole in the waistband. Use the safety pin to pull the elastic through the waistband until it comes out the other side. Just make sure the end without the safety pin stays outside the waistband.

Now both ends of the elastic should be sticking out of the waistband:

Overlap and pin the elastic ends together, making sure the elastic is laying flat and not twisted anywhere in the waistband.

Sew the ends together with a zigzag stitch, going back and forth over it several times for a strong hold. Trim the elastic ends close to the stitching.

Now you can pull on the waistband until the elastic is hidden inside the waistband and the gathers are distributed evenly around the waistband. Then just close up the hole in the waistband by stitching in the ditch, being careful not to catch the elastic in your stitches.

The last step is to hem your shorts! I put the shorts on and had my husband use scissors to trim the hem to be even all the way around. If you did a better job tracing your original pattern than I did, you may not need this step.

I then hemmed the shorts with a rolled hem, the same method I used for the crop top!

And we’re done!