Dress Refashion

I have been doing a little spring cleaning in my closet lately and trying to consign and donate most of my clothes I don't wear anymore, along with the clothes Jelly bean is now out growing. I have also been pinteresting (I don't think that is even a word, but it is now! :P) like crazy to see if maybe I can refashion some of the long sleeve shirts I bought only a year ago. They can still have some use for them, right? In my digging, I found a tank top maxi dress I had bought for Jelly Bean's baptism (almost two years ago) that I only wore once! It was a nice dress, but I wasn't too fond of the maxi length. 

So what's a girl to do?

Like I said above, I have been searching the inter webs of pinterest like crazy to see what is out there and I finally found a few tutorials that was quick and easy!

I followed the guidelines for this tutorial to make the dress a little shorter. I wanted the dress to end right above my knee since the material is spandex, so it would be perfect for the summer months here in the desert. 

I also wanted the dress to be a little more form fitting at the top, so I took another dress that I liked and used it as a guide to pin up the sides.

Sorry about the shadow at the top. My dachshund wanted to help -_-

I sewed along the pins, cut the some of the excess material, then used a zigzag stitch to serge it since I don't have a serger....yet! :P

I tried on the dress to make sure I liked the way it fitted on me at the top, then I used my measuring tape to measure the length of where I wanted to cut the skirt. I measured to about 27" from the shoulders to about my mid thigh.

This was about 27"

Next I used my rotary cutter and hit a straight line. I know, I know! I probably should have pinned all the way across to make a curve, but I was being lazy and just cut straight across! It worked out in the end. :-D

After I cut the excess, I tried the dress back on and measured from the edge of the new dress to where I wanted the new length to be. I think it was about 5-7 inches. I wanted to use the original dress hem so I wouldn't need to make a new hem on the new raw edge (why I measured the first length at mid thigh), so I measured the length with the on the piece I cut off, pinned it to the raw edge of the dress, and sewed all the way around.

As you can see, I am pinning the piece that has the original hem.

The reason for the two pieces was to make the bottom of the dress have a sort of ruffle to it! Here is the new dress!

The floral print doesn't really match at the bottom, but that's ok, I like it anyways. :) 

Now, I wasn't too fond of the no sleeves, so I used the extra fabric I had from the part I cut off and made some sleeves. I wanted to make some butterfly/flutter sleeves, by the time I got it all figured out and sewn on using this tutorial, it didn't turn out the way I had it in my head. Plus, it felt like they were pulling my shoulders down.

To fix that problem, I just used my seam ripper and detached the part that was sewn to the side of the dress. Now they look like kimono sleeves, hehe!

Now detached

Kimono sleeves!

Side view

I am happy about the outcome of the dress and can't wait to wear it to church.

I hope today's post has inspired you to dig through your closet and find those dresses you haven't worn too often! Now onward to refashion some shirts! 

Happy sewing :)