Recently I decided to give a bit of a makeover to my pink scrubs and turn them into an overall. I'm not very good at sewing, but I'll try my best to explain what I was trying to do.

Step 1: Front Placket

Begin by un-stitching all of the pockets, collar and the waist rubber band. Find and mark the center of the top and cut lengthwise. Turn the newly cut sides inwards about 2.5cm and pin.

Step 2: Joining Together

Turn the pants and top inside out and put on. Bend down and pin the top to the pants (this is to make sure you will still be able to bend down once finished). Measure the distance between the pin and the bottom of the top and make a horizontal line around the top.

Tuck the top into the pants, align the waist with the horizontal line of the top and pin together starting at the center of the front and then back. Because I'm not very good at sewing, I like to hand stitch the pieces before machine sewing, but it's not necessary.

Step 3: Shaping

Un-stitch the sides of the top and put it on. Put a couple of pins just under your armpits, hips and somewhere in-between to join the front with the back. Try not to do it too tightly so you would still be able to breath later. Take it off and with the washable marker make a line from under the armpits down, following the pin line. Hand stitch along the line. Turn in and pin the fabric around the neck area.

Step 4: Arm Holes

Draw a line from the shoulders down to the armpit area and cut off the sleeves. Put it on to make sure you're happy with the shoulders width, if not cut off some more. Put it on again and pin the fabric around the bust area if necessary. Draw a line around the back of the neck area and cut off. At this point I hand stitched all of the areas where the pins were.

Step 5: Making Hems

Cut out strips about 2cm wide from the leftover fabric. Stitch together to create longer pieces if needed. On each strip, turn in about 0.5cm on both sides and iron over. Fold in half and iron over again. Place the strip over the arm opening, pin around and stitch if you like. Do the same for the other arm hole and back of the neck area.

Step 6: Sewing

Machine sew all of the hems, folds and joints. It would probably be better to sew the arm and neck hems after sewing the sides, but since I've never really sewn anything like this before, I only realised this after.

Step 7: Snap Buttons

Decide on a number of snap buttons or other buttons, measure and mark the position of each of them and sew on. At this point I let the child within me be creative and I sewed on some of those cute bracelet letter buttons.