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.

Raspberry Sorbet Skirt

When I found this dress at Goodwill I was much more interested in the skirt than the top.  Which is good, because the skirt fit and the top did not.

I'm looking super grumpy in an effort not flash you all.  Too small and see-through is not a good look for a shirt on me!

I was just going to cut the shirt off since the skirt had an elastic waist already, but it turns out the casing for the elastic was half shirt, half skirt.  Ah well.  I ripped out that seam.

Pinned and sewed a new seam and new casing.

Grabbed my bodkin and the original elastic which was both in great shape and the perfect length.

A few quick stitches to join the ends of the elastic and then close the casing, and voila!  A pretty new skirt with pockets.  Pockets on skirts are my favorite.  The length on my new skirt, however, was not.

The pin was to mark where my knees were.  Then I gave it an asymmetric chop, flipped it inside out, pinned and hemmed.

It's not a big difference in hem height - the front hits the top of my knees and the back hits the bottom, but it's plenty fine for me!

A Skirt on the Wild Side

When I was pouring through the skirt racks at Savers, I immediately grabbed this piece and did not put it down:

I mean, it was obviously too long but look at that pattern at the bottom!  Giraffes!  It's also a broomstick skirt so I figured that shortening it would be easy.

I used my red skirt as a pattern since it was similarly flowy.  I didn't leave a seam allowance because my red skirt is a touch too long and hits me right below the knees if I don't roll the waist band up.

Chop!  I used the pattened "fold the cut part over as you go to keep your hem straight" technique here.  It tooks some time since there was an amazing amount of fabric here.  Can you see how great those giraffes are, though?

Next I pinned alll that fabric at the top and then stitched it down to make a casing for my new elastic waistband.

I threaded the elastic through and stitched it together!

And voila!  A fantastic, flowy skirt in my favorite flame-y colors.  I immediately wore it to work the next day and got a million compliments.  It's super fun to twirl in, although probably dangerous for windy days.

I will note that despite my folding my hem was not perfectly even.  It was only off by an inch and a half in one place, though, and I found that if I kept the shorter side in front the hem looked even because my butt lifted the longer side just the right amount!  So, yay for happy accidents, and my large caboose. ;)