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Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Pretty and Pink - From Dress to Cute Skirt and More

At long last, the first of my reconstruction projects is completed.  I took an old, yet cute dress and turned it into a new and still cute skirt, and more.

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More

I bought this dress at Goodwill a while ago, only paid $1.50.  Not bad right?  I loved the pink eyelet fabric used, but I found the top of the dress wasn’t very flattering on me.  High waist and low neckline requires more of a bust then I’ve been blest with.

So I thought, why not turn it into a skirt.

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More

First, I measured from the bottom and cut the skirt from the dress at the length I wanted.  I pinned it at the top to hold the skirt and the lining together.

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More

I then carefully separated the shirred section (the stretchy part) from the rest of the dress.  I will use it as the waistband for my new skirt.

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More

Here is the skirt carefully pinned to the “waistband”.  Just need to sew it with a zig-zag stitch and then…

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More

…I have a cute new skirt.

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More

To make it that much cuter, I added some thin lace to the bottom of the ruffle.

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More

And I cut one of the old straps to make a small bow for the front of the skirt.  Mainly so I can tell which side is the front.

Now what did I do with the rest of the dress?  I made doll clothes.

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More: Doll clothes too.

I thought that if I separated the triangle sections on the top of the dress, then I could whip up a couple of halter tops for the dolls.

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More: Making doll clothes with leftovers

Actually with Sakura here, I could whip up a halter dress.

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More: Making doll clothes.

Just add some ribbon, fold the top point over it and sew it down…

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More: Making doll clothes.

Then wrap it around the doll and add some Velcro or snaps.  Easy enough right?

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More: Making a doll dress

But for this small doll,  I decided to cut the halter part at her waist and add a fuller skirt.  Plenty of scraps for that.

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More: Making doll clothes.

As for my larger dolls, I notice that the back of the original dress had some decent elastic.

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More: Making doll clothes

And if I cute sections of it like this, they would make easy skirts.  Just need to add a ruffle to make them long enough.  That was the idea, but I made some mistakes with cutting.  I still ended up using the same elastic for the waistbands.

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More: Cute doll clothes

The results is a halter top and two skirts for my larger ball jointed dolls, and a cute halter dress for my smaller one.

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More: Cute doll halter dress

And cute is indeed the word for this adorable dress.

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More: Cute doll skirt and halter top.

The halter top and mini skirt looks very cute on Usagi here.

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More

I used the same lace on my skirt for the bottom of all the doll clothes.

Pretty and Pink: From Dress to Cute Skirt and More: Cute doll skirt.

And there’s a slightly longer skirt for Hikaru too.  You can see more photos of the clothes on the doll blog.

A new skirt and four pieces of doll clothes from a single unworn dress.  Not too shabby. 

Here’s the updated list:

  • Pink eyelet
  • Sunflower dress
  • Denim skirt
  • Velvet dress
  • Blue plaid
  • High-waist

One down, five more to go.

Preview of next reconstruction project

And here’s a sneak peak at the next project on my list.  What will it become, you shall find out soon.  Look forward to it.

6 comments:

  1. You make me want to break out my sewing machine. Cute skirt, adorable and all from a dress from GW - genus. Thank you for sharing at Snickerdoodle.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow! Very creative! I love that you bought the dress from Goodwill, I'm all about thrift shopping. Your skirt turned out super cute and the doll clothing was such a good idea :) love it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Very cute skirt and top.

    Kathleen
    Bloggers Pit Stop

    ReplyDelete

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