If one were to make a Venn diagram of elementary school teachers who threw chalk at me at one point and elementary school teachers who wore dresses nearly identical to this one, it would basically just be one big overlapping circle.
Why would anyone require that much skirt fabric? Why?
Thrift stores are rife with these frumpy monstrosities. And they all have labels similar to this one:
I actually liked a few things about this dress though.
The top half isn’t bad. I like how it’s kind of trying to evoke the laid-back comfort of overalls but without the hardware. I like that it’s made of a soft lightweight denim, great for warm SC weather!
End of list.
Not to worry, as I had a plan!
I just knew I could refashion this boring jumper into a cute dress!
First, I removed the top of the dress from the bottom with a big snip!
Then, I removed the gathered part from the skirt.
I flattened out the skirt part, and laid the top part over it.
I used a dress from my closet that I like the length of to measure how much of the skirt fabric to remove.
You can see above where I’m removing fabric from the top of the skirt section, rather than the bottom. This is to preserve the existing hem (why make a new one when there’s one already there, amirite?).
I cut across the top of the skirt part, keeping a small seam allowance for when I reattached everything.
Then, I chopped off the left side, making sure to leave a seam allowance there as well, and measuring it carefully.
I stitched the skirt side seam down.
Can we take a moment to admire my adorable new pin cushion from my blogging pal (and fellow SC blogger), Sadie Seasongoods?
You can learn how to make one of your own right here on her blog!
Anywho…back to the refashion at hand!
I stitched the skirt side seam (try saying that five times fast) down.
Now to get everything reacquainted!
I tucked the top part into the skirt part with the outside-facing fabric facing each other.
Then, I pinned & stitched them together.
After a quick press, my denim jumper dress refashion was complete!
I styled my jumper simply, with a plain white tee and my Benson-chewed (or would that be Benson-refashioned?) Frye biker boots.
I like how the comfy/casual silhouette for this one turned out. My denim jumper still has a strong ’90s vibe, but methinks it’s a much cooler vibe now.
Cheers!
