on IRL Crafting: Dress-Mod Project - Part I

So I bought these dresses around 8 years ago... and unfortunately they no longer fit which is strange because there's no way I could've grown in this amount of time...

Anyway, not wanting to waste the beautiful/cute fabrics that they're made of I wanted to see if I could remake them into something new that could fit. I've finished one, so far, but I'm missing a fitting zipper for the second, so I will post the finished one.

So this first dress is originally a light purple and white ... bah, I forget what this pattern is called.  But anyway. PAISLEY. I really liked it, but it definitely doesn't fit anymore, and as you can tell by the picture, it doesn't really have any form to it... (not that there would be any form to show off in my case but[t]... [ohohoo 8D])

So first we have the tools of Crafting IRL.  We have the Creepy-Voodo-Doll-Pin-Cushion, a Level 1 Primitive Sewing Machine (50% chance of failing while crafting), pretty awesome shears, and the all-powerful-multi-purpose-doohickey that has many names.  I've heard it called something like a Seam Ripper, but then I'd want to name it Jack and put it in a horror movie, Seam Stripper sounds NSFW, Stitch Remover sounds too surgical, and either way, none of these really explain how awesome I think this tool is. I like to think of it as a Salvaging Kit, or more accurately a Reverse Engineering tool (a la SWTOR).  Not only does it let you take apart your gear and return the base materials to you (better than scissors can), but it also allows for you to really understand how it's made and (especially for a noob like me) to think of ideas on how to use the materials to make something better (I've really been crafting too much in SWTOR, I think...).
In any case, the Salvaging Tool is also my CTRL+Z, for when the sewing machine fails me or I just mess up.

So, of course the first step was to Reverse Engineer the dress into its component pieces. Unlike the other dress, I really only used the bottom part and not even all of it because the top was just too skinny (God forbid, I've somehow developed hips since I bought these). So the straps and the rest of the top of this dress haven't been used at all, but are being kept on hand in case I ever need them again. I just chopped off the excess cloth and re-hemmed it.

The process was, unfortunately, not without casualties. This is what I mean by "50% chance of fail" when using my mom's old sewing machine. At least I was lucky enough that my materials weren't consumed and replacing the needle was enough to allow me to continue crafting.

After hemming the part that had been cropped, there was still the question of how I could get this creation to stay on my body. I decided on a simple to use, simple to make, solution - a drawstringribbon.

Sewing in a simple fold in which to put the ribbon, I had to put the ribbon IN and did not have any fancy tools with which to do so. Mom directed me to a bobby pin. This simple solution worked very well and shortly after worming it through the skirt, I had a finished project.

It's hard to tell in the pictures, but there are pockets in the front (they were already on the original dress - no need to remove them), and the ribbon comes out in the back. This latter feature is just because there was a slit back there from where the zipper used to be, so instead of sewing it up and trying to make a new hole for the ribbon to come out, I chose the lazy way out.

Anyway, overall this skirt was much easier than the next one that will be finished as soon as I can obtain a zipper of the right size.