quick dress to skirt refashion

Here we go for my first show and tell!  So I had this one sun dress: worn once and it was the most uncomfortable thing I have ever owned. The halter top just really didn't support the weight of the fabric  therefore rubbing my skin raw from the drawstring around my neck.

after

pseudo before

I was just going to donate it, but looking at it a few weeks ago I decided it would make a nice skirt instead.  I apologize for not having step by step photos since I didn't think this would turn into a pseudo tutorial. This is a pretty quick refasion and the directions should get you started on your own old dress.

Cost: Free
Time: 20-30 minutes
Needed:

• old dress
• safety pin
• sewing machine
• cutting board
• rotary cutter

1.  Mark your cut.  Hold the dress up to yourself or put it on. Find the height you like your skirts to sit on your waist with your finger. Now move your finger 2 inches up and mark with a pen/sharpie.

2.  Make the cut.  Take the dress and lay it flat on your cutting board.  Try to line up your markings with the cutting board's grid to get a straight cut across for your waist.  Use the rotary cutter to cut across the grid giving yourself a skirt and top piece. 

3.  Make your drawstring.  I was lucky that my dress had a perfect drawstring already from the halter top, so I just removed it to reuse.  For dresses without a reusable drawstring, you can remove some of the fabric from the top piece cutting a half inch above your waist cut to get a large circle.  Find a seam and cut there to get one long piece of one inch fabric. Fold it over and sew down the whole length. You could just knot the ends or feed some beads on the end before knotting to give the drawstring a little something-something.

4.  Sew the waistline.  Now that drawstring needs somewhere to go.  Turn your skirt piece inside out.  Fold down from the waist cut about an inch all the way around. Pin the fold in place.  You may wish to iron at this point depending on your fabric.  Sew the fold in place so the waistline is completed.

5.  Feed in the drawstring.  Now snip a half inch cut in the front of the skirt within the completed waistline fold.  Secure a safety pin on one end of your drawstring. Start to feed the safety pin through the cut and continue to push it through the fold until you can push it back through the cut on the other side.

I hope this is helpful for some readers to get going on a dress transformation. Please let me know how it goes!