A Dress for a Summer Wedding

Two of my very good friends from college were getting married and invited me and the gentleman to attend.  What to wear?  It was pretty informal, but it was also going to be outside in Western Mass in June, which mean it was pretty much guaranteed to be toasty.  Clearly a skirt at least was called for.  I decided to go for a dress that I could also wear to work or around town, so comfort and pockets were called for.

This is what I had to work with.  The dress was huge to the point that if I wasn't wearing that tanktop you all would have gotten to see my lovely bra!  I loved the colors and the flower print, but there was way too foof: ruffles and shirring, oh my!  Luckily on the same thrifting trip I came up with that simple coral tank, which matched the color of the pinker flowers in the dress's pattern quite well.  It was destined to be the bodice of my new dress.

First I chopped all the skirt layers off of the lining layers, leaving me with three pieces of fabric.  I pinned right sides together and assembled my new, simpler skirt with a zigzag stitch since the jersey had some stretch.  From here on out I was guided by this tutorial.

Next I measured my waist with some 3" elastic and found a comfortable fit.  Chopping off the desired length I zigzagged the ends together.

A quick press to the elastic hem and it was time to attach the skirt!  I divided both the elastic and the skirt top into four equal parts and marked the bounds with pins.  I matched the pins on both, and then gathered the skirt in each quadrant.  Once gathered I pinned the rest of the skirt to the elastic so that the gathers were evenly spaced.

Satisfied, I sewed it down with another zigzag.  I of course forgot to hem the top of the skirt - clearly sewing after 9pm is not a good idea for me.  I finished that off hem with fray check after finishing all my sewing.

I then turned to my tank top and shortened the straps by measuring on me and pinning.  As a short torsoed and busty lady I basically have to do this with every tank ever.  Two quick zigs and snips, and I measured where I wanted the elastic to hit me. 

With a pin to mark it I took off the tank and cut off the unneeded bottom, and then pinned it inside out onto my elastic.  Another zigzag hem, and the basic piece was assembled!  When I wore it I found that the tank was too long in the back.  I didn't have time to fix it before the wedding, so I threw a cardigan over it and left it to fix later.

 

Here it is on the mountain where the wedding was held.  Please excuse the squinting - it was an awesome time but VERY sunny. More info on pocket creation will come in another post.