WIMTWW: Men's Shirt to Women's Dress

Last night I had a great idea and got really excited about it... but I couldn't find the supplies I wanted so I had to come up with another one.  So I sat amidst my stash of men's shirts until one came to me.  I'm pretty pleased with the results, what do you think?

I'd like to have some comfy dresses to throw on this spring and summer instead of work out clothes or old t-shirts.  Unfortunately, it still isn't quite long enough to be worn without something under it, maybe I'll add to it, I haven't quite decided.  Wanna see what I did?  You know you do...

First find a really big men's dress shirt that you like the pattern of, the bigger the better.  Here is what I started with:

Time to deconstruct!  I used a seam ripper and took off the pocket and arms.  I could have just cut the arms off but decided by taking the french seam out, putting the arms back together would be easier, and it was.  No need to iron (I'll do anything to avoid ironing).

 Then slice the top half off.  I measured down about 3 inches from the bottom of the arm hole.  I probably should have gone another inch, but I think it ended up working.  Watch out for the buttons, you may have to adjust where you cut

Now cut the arm open and cut out the largest piece possible, like so:

Set those pieces aside, time to go back to the top section.  Fold under the edges and sew up the arm holes.  If you need to bring it in, now is the time.  My seam ripper is acting as an arrow, this is where I sewed to make the arm hole shorter and bring it in across the front.

Next we are going to attach the largest sections from the sleeves.  Don't worry about sewing them together just yet.  Even them up across the front and the back.

Once the two pieces are attached, sew from under the arm straight down to the bottom.  This makes it lay nicer than if you sew the two sleeve pieces into a tube first.

Now we reattach the bottom portion of the shirt.  I missed a few pictures here, but here's the lowdown.  Line up the buttons, the back centers and the side seams and pin those places.  Since your skirt piece is probably wider than the top portion, add a few pleats by pinning them into place evenly across the front and back.

Here are the pleats:

I basted all my seams and then serged but you can also zig zag to finish them. You can stop here if you like.  I wanted the dress to have a bit more shape and since there was no way to match up the stripes at the sides and still have enough fabric, I wanted to conceal this a bit.  Mark off 2.5-3 inches on either side of the side seam.

Shirr several rows on both sides.  I originally started in the middle of the panel but decided to shirr the whole thing, making it lay nice and flat across the front of me, not adding any extra width to my middle!

Now it's a dress, well, at least for someone who isn't almost 6 feet tall!  I haven't decided if I'm going to add something to trim the bottom and make it a few inches longer...

... or cut it off and have it be more of a tunic length?

What do you think I should do?
Peace be with you,