Before and After: Denim Shirt Dress

I altered this denim dress without taking enough pictures to do a tutorial, but I love how it turned out so I still wanted to share it here. I really like the shirt dress style, but I can rarely find any that are long enough for me so I knew I would either have to make one from scratch, or find something to alter. I decided I would start by checking out some thrift stores (always a great place to find big, denim dresses) and I found one for $3 that I was able to alter in just a couple of hours.

Before:

This dress was a size 16 (I usually wear a size 4 or 6) so it was several sizes too large, but it definitely had plenty of length! When I alter dresses like this one, I always look at is how the shoulders fit. I don't like re-setting sleeves, and I especially didn't want to re-set them in this dress because of the top-stitching that I would have to try to duplicate, so I tried to find one that fit ok across the chest and shoulders. It looks pretty awful in this picture (and it doesn't help that my hair isn't done either), but I wanted my dress to fit somewhat loosely (the way a comfy denim jacket would) so I knew it work out after the alterations.

After:

The make of the dress was fairly simple, so I really only had to do a few cuts and seams to get it to fit the way I wanted. I took in the width of the sleeves (about 2 inches) all the way up from the cuffs, along the underarms, and back down the sides of the dress. Then I cut off about six inches of length and sewed a new hem. I used the same techniques for the hem of the dress as I used in this jean tutorial.

I wear this dress all the time now.  It has been perfect for fall and can be dressed up or dressed down and it's so comfy! What do you think of my before and after?