Womens Skirt to Girls Dress Refashion

I was given this womens size 16 skirt yesterday and it seemed like a logical item to make into another girls dress refashion.  It does however look pretty awesome with rollerblades and pyjamas ;-)

After getting my daughter to try the skirt on, I was able to work out roughly how much to take off each side.  I then pinned the sides, and drew a line in chalk to follow when sewing the new side seams. 

 I left the skirts original side zip in place, and turned it so it could be used as the back zip on the dress.

After sewing the new side seams, I cut off the excess fabric, and then zig-zaged the raw edges to stop fraying.

I wanted to make thin brown straps from the excess fabric.  But M had other ideas, and insisted she wanted the straps to be made from the blue parts of the offcuts, AND she also wanted them to cover her shoulders.... say what? I had no idea how to make sleeves to fit a dress that was supposed to have strappy staps, but if I'm being honest, I'm not sure I could makes sleeves at all.

But I was willing to give it a whirl.  I threaded elastic through the top of each 'sleeve', still not knowing exactly how this was going to come together.  

On trying it on, M declared that she wanted 'air flow' and didn't want the sleeves sewn together under her arms.  So I sewed the 'sleeves' on the front and rear like this. And the request for 'air flow' actually made the whole 'sleeve' process much easier, and the sleeves now have a 'cape' look about them.

Oh, so much fun was had posing for these photos.

And this is yet another no cost refashion - cotton and elastic used was already in my stash.