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.
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.
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.
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.
Here is the skirt carefully pinned to the “waistband”. Just need to sew it with a zig-zag stitch and then…
…I have a cute new skirt.
To make it that much cuter, I added some thin lace to the bottom of the ruffle.
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.
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.
Actually with Sakura here, I could whip up a halter dress.
Just add some ribbon, fold the top point over it and sew it down…
Then wrap it around the doll and add some Velcro or snaps. Easy enough right?
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.
As for my larger dolls, I notice that the back of the original dress had some decent elastic.
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.
The results is a halter top and two skirts for my larger ball jointed dolls, and a cute halter dress for my smaller one.
And cute is indeed the word for this adorable dress.
The halter top and mini skirt looks very cute on Usagi here.
I used the same lace on my skirt for the bottom of all the doll clothes.
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.
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.
