I have had a dress in my closet now for over 11 years. I had not worn it, but I didn't want to get rid of it. Though it is not a style I would wear now (and likely could not fit into), I really liked the colors. So, I continued to hold on to it. Then, I had a great idea--I'll make it into a skirt for my daughter.
I used much of the same techniques outlined in this
simple skirt tutorial. Here's what I did:
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| The Dress! |
First, I measured Maddie's waistline and how long we wanted the skirt to be. I added an inch and a half to the length for the elastic casing.
I placed the dress on my cutting mat and spent some time getting the bottom edge lined up. Then I cut it off. (That was a little scary for me for some reason!)
The dress had two layers, so I pinned the layers to each other around the top of the skirt, being careful to match up the seams.
I did a straight stitch with a 1/4 inch seam allowance around the top of the skirt.
Then I did an overlock stitch around the raw edges. I have a Brother Innovis-80--use G foot, stitch 5. Adjust stitch width to 5 and stitch length to 1.6. I love that this foot guides the edge of the fabric so well! A zig-zag stitch or serged edge would work great, too.
Here's what I ended up with.
Now to make the casing. I totally recommend using a template. Find it
here about mid-way through the article. This part was a little difficult--the material was not "ironable." I ended up using the template to place the fabric in position as well as I could and then pinned in place. I folded the material over 1 1/2 inches because I was going to sew 1/4 inch from the edge and use 1 inch elastic. I left a 2 inch opening to place my elastic in place.
At this point I tried it on Maddie. (A good thing, too, because I had to take it up a little.)
Done! A quick and inexpensive skirt.
Best of all, Maddie really liked it. She is searching for her pink leggings so that she can wear it today! Hope you can use this project to make something new from something old!
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