Prom Dress Refashion

Hello crafty friends! I've been doing some much needed cleaning in my closet and came across my prom dress. I've only gotten to wear it twice (I used it one year for a Halloween costume) and it's been sitting in a box for the last 8+ years, so I decided it was time to give it a new look and new life.

To start off, I figured out where I wanted to make my waistline and pinned all around

Next, I cut where my pins were. This dress had boning in it so I had to rip out some seams to get the boning out and be able to cut all the way around the dress. I also cut about an inch above the waistline so that I would be able to fold it over the elastic I was going to use.

Since this dress had multiple layers of fabric, I pinned the layers together and then sewed a straight line the whole way around to secure them together.  Then I zig-zagged over the edge to keep it from fraying.

Next I started securing my elastic to the dress. This was kinda tricky because I didn't want the dress to bunch up any in the front, so I pinned the 2 ends of the elastic to the dress and then started pinning around as I went. I made sure the front of the dress laid flat and that all the bunch was going to end up in the back. The tricky part about elastic is that you have to stretch it as you sew.




Ta-Da!! Elastic secured!

After I sewed the elastic in, I folded the excess fabric over and sewed it down to create the waistline.

And that's it! I hope you are able to use this refashion to get some more life out of an old dress that you have floating around.

I'm feeling this skirt is a little plain, so I'm thinking of adding pickups to it to give it a different shape and make it less plain. Stay tuned and happy crafting!

Cute Dress-- Almost fits!

Don't you hate it when you find a dress at the store for a GREAT price and then it won't fit over your boobs? ME TOO!! Damnit, tatas.

Well guess what? Hate it no more! Just cut the back of the dress open and add a long triangle of lace. You can add about six total inches of width across the back of the dress without it being wonky and clumpy.

Here's the dress I found:

For $6.00. Seriously. How could I walk away from this?!

It reminds me of the one Julia Roberts wore to the horse races in Pretty Woman. Big part of my childhood.

I wish I had taken a photo of the back of the dress, but as you can kind of tell at the left, the back had a button closure.

I took the button off and folded the closing ends over, then sewed them down to make a V. I added a triangle of lace, measured from the top of the back neckline to the waist, skinny side down.

A zip zip at the sewing machine, a couple quick alterations, a strip of lace as a belt, and BLAMO!

<3 Bethany