Housecoat/dress made of old flannel shirts

I had some old flannel shirts that had belonged to my dad. They were too big for me, so I decided to make something else out of them. As a starting point, I took a dress called "Lankku" (Plank) by Nanso. It's a good fit for me and very comfortable, so I used it to make patterns out of what was left of the old duvet cover.

There was no way to cut entire pieces out of the flannel, so I divided the pattern into pieces and then cut pieces of flannel as shown in the next picture. These pieces took two shirts to make, so I knew at this point that I'd have to use the third one as well.

I combined the pieces by overlapping the edges and using a stitch that's meant for this kind of combining. The main thing I wanted was for the garment to be comfortable, so regular seams were out of the question.

When all these seams were ready, I used strips of colorful fabrics to cover them. It made the result neater, and it was also more fun to have some cute pictures as the flannel colors were a bit dull.

I used the third shirt for the sleeves and edges. Cutting usable parts of that shirt was a bit tricky as it had some paint stains, but I managed to avoid having any stains visible. I made huge pockets for this as they need to accommodate a mobile phone and all sorts of other stuff I carry around at home. (I don't expect to wear this when going out, unless it's just quickly taking the trash out.)

The last stage was sewing buttons and button holes. I remember sewing a couple of button holes with my old sewing machine, but not buttons (I don't think it had that function). Now I decided to try doing both using my current sewing machine.

This is the foot for sewing button holes. You put the button on the back where it defines the size of the button hole, and the machine makes the button hole automatically. I made 8 perfect button holes, and then the last one (closest to the hem) got messed up somehow. I removed the stitches for that one and decided that 8 buttons was enough.

Then it was time for the buttons. The instructions in the user guide were clear enough, and the next photo shows the first ever button I have sewn using a sewing machine. I wanted to practice first on a separate piece of fabric in case I mess it up, but it wasn't that hard, you just need to be careful in positioning the button.

So this ended up being the first piece of clothing with buttons that I have ever made without any hand sewing, all done with the sewing machine.

Here is the finished dress. The breast pockets are from the flannel shirts. For the white/grey one, I cut the shirt so that I'd get the pocket in the correct place. The other pocket is from the third shirt, and I cut it out of that one and sewed in place to this.