How to Make a Peasant Shirt/Dress

I made Ashley a peasant dress for the Renaissance wedding in October.

Here's how it is done:
This is for a child and will require-
1 yard of fabric for a shirt (2 yards for a dress)
1 1/2 yards elastic (I used 1/2 inch but for a toddler you would want 1/4 inch)

1. Find a shirt that fits your child loosely. Fold your fabric in half and lay the shirt over it with the top of the shoulder/neck lining up with the top of your fabric. Add three inches below the armpit and this is where you will start cutting (on your selvage or open ends of the folded fabric).

2. Lay a shorter piece of fabric (also folded in half) over the longer bodice part and cut it the exact same size as the arm holes you already cut.

Your two pieces should look like this:

3. Sew the sleeves onto one of the bodice panels.

4. Line the sleeves up and sew them onto the other panel.

5. Sew down the length of the shirt/dress from the bottom of the sleeve through the armpit and down the length.

6. Finish all your edges with a 5/8 inch hem.

7. Pin your neck and sleeves to a 1 1/2 inch hem. Sew 1/2 inch from the fold and then a 1/4 inch from the hem line (leave a 2 inch space open at the hem line for threading the elastic). This will make a 3/4 inch space to thread the elastic through.

8. Thread the elastic. Sew the ends of the elastic together. Close your 2 inch hem space.
 (My elastic was 21 inches for the neck and 9 for the sleeves.)

 9. Hem the bottom of the shirt/dress. Voila! You are finished!!!

I made a dress, but now I want to make her a bunch of shirts. I did tie a ribbon around her for the picture.

If that looks super hard (which it isn't) then it is because my tutorial isn't so good.

Here's the link that helped me and has great tutorial pictures.
Peasant Blouse Link