Rustic Refashion: Whimsical Girls Dress

Where have I been?

I've still been taking on lots of projects, I just don't seem to have had the time or the energy to blog about them. I also broke my last sewing machine needle a couple of weeks back, and didn't manage to get to the shops to buy new ones until yesterday. But with my new needles, and warmer weather on the way, I thought today would be a good day to tackle a few of the 'summer projects' piling up in my sewing/homeschool room, and actually blog about them.

I picked this strapless womans dress up a couple of weeks ago, thinking it had the potential to be a nice girls dress or skirt.

I decided on a dress.

First port of call was to chop off that shirred elastic.

Then I folded the dress and half and chopped off a bit of fabric to create arm and neck holes.

See, kinda looks like a dress already.

I then hemmed the neck line and sewed the dress together at the two shoulder points.

But it was looking a little too sack like, so I made the 'bodice' part of the dress more fitting by chopping off these bits.

After sewing up those new side seems the arm holes became tiny. So I made them bigger again by chopping off a bit more fabric before hemming them to finish the dress off.

Maybe this whimsical dress would have been better for my 8 year old. But Miss 10 needs summer clothes more, and for now is happy enough to humour me and wear it because it is comfy and cool.

Chookies....

Ok I know this photo isn't amazing, unlike mulberry season, which is possibly my favourite season of the year (those are mulberries she is holding in case you were wondering why I was rambling on about mulberries), but (back to the photo) it does display the finished dress quite well.