June Challenge Summer Dress Inspiration: The Shirt Dress

I'm finished with my June Challenge Dress #2! Only I cannot show it to you. As I was taking pictures of it today my camera suddenly shut itself off and I haven't managed to turn it back on since. I hope it is not broken! I hope it will recover. No! I might be able to get pictures done on a borrowed camera some time this week. I really, really hope so. What will I do without being able to take pictures??? Nooooo.

In the meantime, I will share some summer dress inspiration with you about a style I really love but have never worn or sewn before (Well, until June Challenge Summer Dress #2 came along): Shirt Dresses. I think shirt dresses look really smart and can be worn and styled in so many ways. Here are some of my favourite versions:

1. Electric Blue Shirt Waist Dress (Source unknown); 2. Hello, Nostalgia Dress by ModCloth; 3. Afternoon Sweets Dress by ModCloth; 4. 60s Chiffon Shirt Waist Dress (Source unknown)

The green chiffon dress with the collar and bowtie is so pretty. All these dresses can be made using a very simple pattern, like the ones I posted about here by adding a button extension to the center front of the pattern. Alternatively, there are, of course, numerous beautiful patterns available, in which the work has been done for you already. Vogue 8613 is a nice pattern and would work well to recreate the electric blue and stripey red shirt dresses above:

This Vogue 8577, which looks like a Vintage Vogue pattern but isn't, is also very pretty. The polka dots are gorgeous:

One of my favourite shirt dress patterns is this one from Butterick. It has a Peter Pan collar. Go Peter Pan collar!

Burdastyle has a ton of shirt dresses as well. Remember the Jonny Dress from way back when burdastyle patterns were still all free and the site had a small but manageable selection of patterns (Sigh...the olden days):

I've been wanting to make this dress for so long. I especially like their version with transparent sleeves. But maybe this is something for the colder months. And then, of course, you could take any shirt pattern and just add a skirt and, voila, you have a shirt dress. Should be simple enough. Are you planning on making a shirt dress for the June Challenge? Which patterns are you using or are you going to modify a dress or shirt pattern? Any shirt dress favourites or are you anti-shirt dress?