Vintage Dress --> skirt refashion

Difficulty:

Cost:

Vintage dress - $4

Look familiar? 

Welcome to week two of our alterations month at Salute to Cute! 

Remember the vintage dress Ali transformed into this cute peplum top last week? Well the refashion didn't stop there! She also cleverly crafted a cute and easy skirt out of the bottom of the dress.

So this week Ali will show you how to make a simple skirt out of a vintage dress.

Materials:

Vintage dress

Tools:

Scissors

Sewing machine

Needle and thread

Methods:

Start by cutting the dress in half, leaving you with a long skirt and a cropped top.

Next trim the bottom off the skirt so it is a bit longer than you want it to end up.

The next step is to gather the top of the skirt.

To do this, sew a basting stitch along the top of the skirt. It is easiest if you sew two lengths of stitching, one along the front and one along the back.

 Then measure your waist and pull the bobbin thread to start gathering the skirt. 

You want the skirt to be half the length of your waist measurement when it is lying flat.

Then tie a knot in the two threads at each end of the row of stitches.

The next step is to make a waistband.

To do this, use the fabric you cut off the bottom of your skirt to cut a rectangle 1 inch longer than your waist measurement and twice as wide as you want the waistband to be. My rectangle was 28'' long and 6'' wide.

Then fold the rectangle in half lengthways, wrong sides together, and sew along the bottom as above.

Next, cut a buttonhole off the length of skirt you removed from the bottom. 

Make sure the piece you cut is a 1/2'' wider than your waistband as you're going to attach the buttonhole to the end of the waistband.

Fold the top of this piece down and topstitch a 1/2'' seam.

Then attach this piece to the waistband, right sides together.

Make sure that you sew it onto the side of the waistband that the buttonholes are on on the skirt.

Next fold a 1/2'' seam on the other end of the waistband and topstitch as below.

Finally sew a button from the discarded bottom of the skirt onto this end.

Then you have a waistband!

Lastly pin your waistband to your skirt and hem the bottom and you're done!

How easy was that? And so cute!

So there you go, two pieces of clothing for the price of one vintage dress!

Happy twirling,