Thrifty Thursday: A Dress Turned Skirt

First of all, let me proudly report that my jeans are still going strong! Having worn them all afternoon and evening in 100+ degree weather for our 4th of July party, I can safely say that the smell is gone. And if it comes back (heaven forbid!) I'll know what to do with it. :)

Today's post is all about a cute little dress that I found at an amazing new (to me) store in Fort Worth, Half of Half. I was looking for something to wear on my birthday date with Wes and came across this little one. I loved the polka-dot skirt, but had my reservations about the top. I bought it anyway. :) Upon arriving home and showing the dress to Wes, he had the same reservations about the bodice, but really thought that the skirt was nice. So I wore something else on our date and set about remaking this dress into a skirt!



As you can see from the above picture, the bodice leaves a little to be desired, especially in length. *ahem* And you can also see my sewing room in the above picture! Yes, that is a lime-green curtain (that I found for $1 at a garage sale) and orange paint in the sewing center (which was given to us--unpainted)...I like bright colors. :)

This is what the back of the dress looked like before I cut the bodice off:



This was an especially easy fix, since the waistband of the skirt is made of a wide elastic. Please note that the zipper is UNZIPPED in this photo and remains that way until the completion of the project. If you trim the bodice with the zipper up, you will trim the zipper head off and will be unable to use the skirt. If you zip it up before you've sewn down the folded edges, you will also be unable to use the skirt. This may seem like a fairly straight-forward statement, but believe me, it has to be said. If I had a nickel for the number of times I've zipped the head off of a trimmed zipper, I'd be rich. :)

Here I have started cutting the bodice off, leaving about 3/4" allowance all the way around. This is to make sure that I have enough excess zipper to fold over:



After the bodice is completely cut off, I left about 1 1/2" on either side of the zipper for folding down and then trimmed the rest of the excess off even with the top of the skirt elastic. I could have done this all in one step, but it's easy to forget to leave the excess on one side of the zipper if you do it that way, so I prefer to be safe rather than sorry. :)



Once the trimming is complete, I folded down the excess material and the zipper to make them even with the top of the elastic. Pin to hold in place!



Using a needle that has been double-threaded, I used a quick whip-stitch to secure the folded material to the wrong side of the skirt, sewing only onto the seam allowance. (If you sew to the elastic without the right kind of thread and stitches, it will break when the elastic stretches.) Repeat on the other side BEFORE you zip the zipper.



Here we are: the finished skirt, safely zipped up! :)



And here I am, wearing the skirt and being silly about taking pictures. ;) Apologies for the bathroom shot, but I can't figure out another way to take a picture of myself. At least you get to see another room in the house, though! This is the guest half-bath, right across from the sewing room. You can see that I carried the orange theme over into this room. :)



I paired the skirt with a black H&M top that I found on another thrifting expedition, a string of red beads found at a local antique shop, some crazy-huge white earrings (from Target) found at Goodwill and my favorite dancing shoes, the only item that I didn't thrift! But I got them on sale and have worn them so many times that they count. ;)



So there you go: a new skirt rises (easily) from the ashes of a practically unwearable dress. And I will have a lot of fun dancing in this new skirt tonight as Wes and I help to call a dance! :)