When I was getting my new sewing room in order last week I found a dress that I bought last summer at a second hand store. I never got around to redesigning it then so when I found it I was excited to finally get to work. It’s easier to redesign a long dress into a short one since there’s more fabric to work with. This dress was especially good because it didn’t have many seams or other “extras” that are hard to work with. I didn’t have any zipper and didn’t want the struggle that always occurs when I am sewing on a zipper so I came up with the idea to use a cut-out in the back with a button and an elastic waste instead.

So this was what the dress looked like before:

Not really flattering, certainly not on me. But I really like the fabric.

So this is what I did:

I started by taking a dress (from Indiska) that fits me well and has a good length and placed it next to the cherry dress to mark where I should cut to get the skirt a good length.

I cut straight across the skirt. I then used this skirt as a pattern to cut out a copy out of black fabric for the lining. I sewed it together at the sides. Then I sewed the two skirts together at the top and sewed a seam around to make a tunnel and added elastic.

Using my “good dress” again I traced a pattern of the front and back bodice adding darts where needed. For the back I drew a half-circle to the pattern that would make out the cut-out in the back.

I cut out the front and back bodice pieces from the lining fabric.

For the back I sewed around the half-circle, the armpit and the neck leaving the sides, strap and bottom open.

On one of the back pieces I made a loop for the button and placed this in between the two fabrics when sewing together.

This is where I got caught up in the sewing and forgot to take pictures of the process. Leave a comment if you want more details. What I did was sew the bodice together and tried it on several times to make adjustments so it fit well. Then I sewed on the skirt to the bodice and added a button to the back. Done!

The finished dress

And here are some pictures of the dress (and me) that my boyfriend took, thank you P!

 If you like refashion / redesign, check out my new post here