I wasn’t going to be doing any frolicking whatsoever in the dress when I first found it.

The pits on this dress were a bit worn, and it’s missing its original belt. No worries! I lopped off the dress at the top (removing the pit problem entirely).
The dress is lined, so I strategically safety-pinned a couple of spots before I made my big cut to keep the lining from getting out of alignment with the outer layer. 🙂

Then, I turned the raw edge over twice and pinned it.

When I made my big cut, I also had to cut the side zipper on the dress. No biggie! It’s not going to mess anything up. I folded it over with the rest of the top.

I ran my top through my machine to finish it off!

Now I needed to deal with the size of the dress. Because of the side zip, I took it in from the back about 3 inches.


I chopped off the excess material, and was ready to head out the door for a fun-filled evening of Karaoke! 🙂

A question I get a lot when making strapless dresses is, “Wait a sec…how does it stay up without elastic or anything? Won’t you just be tugging at it all day?”. The answer is, no. 🙂 When you custom fit something to yourself, it’s going to fit much better than the off-the-rack stuff you’re used to…just another reason to start sewing, if you don’t already! 😉


See? Photo evidence! That dress isn’t going anywhere! 🙂


Cheers!
really nice job on this one! (: the dress looked so horrid in the beginning! :/ but you really turned it into something spectacular! (:
Totally agree with Becky: didn’t care for the print originally, but your re-do is wonderful, especially with the particular way you accessorized it!! Lovely!
You definitely improved this dress! I didn’t really like the print before you changed it, after looks great.
This is fantastic! My favorite of all the one’s you’ve done for year 2 thus far.
I love what you did to this dress. In fact, a friend gaVe me a similAr one from a charity shop to “refashion” and I´ve been looking at it for a fortnight now wondering what the heck to do with it…am feeling inspired. And once you´d changed it, it looked really pretty, Looks like it was a pretty well made dress to start with (lining etc) but the pattern really comes into its own in your new version. Well done!
Thanks! This dress actually was really well made, with a nice lining. I almost turned it inside-out to make the lining the visible layer. 🙂