Hey! I'm Alyssa, plus Long Straight, to Short Gathered, Blue Dress Refashion

Hey! My name is Alyssa and I'm so excited to get to be part of the refashion co-op! I've been sewing for about 16 years now and unintentionally refashioning for most of that, but I really got into refashioning with in the past year. My first "intentional" refashion was this blue dress.

I found it at Goodwill and loved the soft stretchy fabric. I briefly considered keeping the dress as it was and using it as a night gown, but I knew I would get more use out of it was a dress. So I decided to refashion it.

Thus, I cut it up.

Then I drew on it.

(Look at the seams on the back of the dress here, aren't they cool?)

Why did I cut it up before drawing on it, you may ask? Well, there was this seam about a foot or so from the bottom of the skirt straight across the front of the dress. So I used that as my cutting guide. The line I then drew was at my hip level. Why? 

I much prefer full, gathered, skirts to straight skirts. So when I was figuring out what I wanted to do with this dress I knew right away that I wanted the skirt to be gathered. That piece of skirt I cut off the bottom of the dress? It became the new skirt. I gathered the top edge, then sewed it onto the dress at hip level, where I had drawn the line. The middle section of skirt, now hidden by the gathered skirt, I just cut off.

 I paid special attention to matching the seams on the back since I thought 

they added some nice lines to the dress. 

  After just a couple hours of sewing, ta-dah! I had a cute, brand-new dress, that only cost me $4!

This dress was a wardrobe staple last winter and I look forward to pulling it out again! To see more of my refashions and other sewing project (plus goat pictures) stop by my blog The Sewing Goatherd!

Until next time, 

           Alyssa, The Sewing Goatherd