on IRL Crafting: Dress-Mod Project - Part II

So the first part of this project was based off a Sweetie Bell colored paisley patterned dress which was very simply made into a draw-string skirt. This second part involved changing this very adorably-patterned pink checkered dress into something that I could fit into. As you can see, compared to the previous dress, this one had a bit of form stitched into it, which made it a little harder to fit into than the last one.

At least the people who originally made the dress (Old Navy) made it easy for me, and the form of the dress was created just by taking in some parts, rather than cutting different pieces of cloth. So using my Salvaging Tool, I took apart the dress and, unlike the previous one, more than just the bottom part was used. We'll get to how the top part was used in a little bit, but first, the bottom. The problem here was that the waist was too thin, and would not go over my hips (hard to imagine that I might have actually developed some figure since the last 8 years... or maybe I'm just fat now). In any case, re-working this dress really required some out-of-the-box thinking, and especially some in-the-chimney thinking.

Because the waistline of the dress was originally made to be thinner and then flare out at the bottom, so I decided to turn the bottom part of the dress upside down! On the original dress, the zipper was placed on the side, so when we removed that, the simple solution was to just hem those two places and make it a slit in the narrower part so it wouldn't be hard to walk. I also opened up the other side and re-hemmed it in order to make it symmetrical, and then added some adorable lace as a trim at the bottom.

As for the waistline for this new skirt, as I said, we turned it upside down, so now the top area was a little too BIG for my waist, so we had to take it in at a few points, and then add in a zipper so I can get in and out of it, without it falling off. The original dress had a slight slit in the back, and this is where we put the new zipper - I really tried to make this as simple as possible, and really take advantage of the dress' original structure. This is especially evident in what I did with the top part of the dress - I made it into a pocket!

So the top part, at first, just looks like a weird bikini-top-thing, but it was double layered initially (for comfort and/or opacity), with a cute trim at the top that held the two layers together, and also led in to the spaghetti straps of the dress. Taking advantage of the double layering, I just undid a bit of the trim, where appropriate, and then cut the top part in half, as shown. Then I sewed cut part on one of the halves which formed the last wall of a stand-alone pocket.

Then I just added some of that lace we had on the trim (using up the last of this lace that has been in our home for as long as I can remember) and VOILA - a pocket. All that was left was to attach it to the skirt itself! Also, just because I couldn't think of a way to get rid of the strap, I actually left it on because cutting it off would cause it to fray, and it's also fun to play with.

Nothing exciting about the back, so just a front view. The pocket's a little ridiculous, but I hate having skirts/pants without them, so I like it. Showed it to my dad to which he responded, "Nice... is it an apron or a tablecloth?" Thanks, Trolldad. Either way, I like it and I think it turned out quite nicely.