This post is me deciding to alter a dress I wasn't fond of and didn't wear anymore, so I made it into a skirt I will wear with a few simple tweaks. As I'm not the best at sewing this post shows how simple and quick it can be to alter your own clothes, best of all I did this project for free. So in case this has interested you or you would like to recreate something similar I've documented the steps I took below.
Let's get started then !
Firstly I separated the dress by unpicking the stitching around the waist that joined them together. I then measured my waist adding an inch or so ease and cut the elastic to the appropriate length. I finished the elastic waistband by joining both ends by half a cm.
Next step was attaching waistband to skirt, I did this by putting right sides together and doing a 1cm seam allowance. Stretching the elastic was necessary to join them together, as the skirt was quite a bit bigger and this ensures no puckering. Ta da we now have a skirt with a waist band!
I wanted to add a bit more to this design wise, so I decided to make some brace straps. To do this I made a basic pattern in grease proof paper, I just measured from the back of my waist to the front, over my shoulder. I got the width by using a metre ruler, I then added a cm seam allowance all the way round. Then I simply cut 2 pieces out of a black fabric then sewed my cm seam allowance down both sides of my straps.
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| I was just lazy and couldn't be bothered to change my thread, but I like the effect of the white on black. |
All that was left to do now was attach the straps, I folded over the seam allowance and attached the folded edge to the waistband.
Then I found some cool buttons whilst rummaging and decided why not add them too!
Finally my skirt is finished, all in a days (or couple of hours) work. Look out for an outfit post with it later in the week.
Thanks for reading, hope some of you try this and feel free to shows me the results!
Jennifer x
