'Something old, something new.'

SO. It's got to that time of year again when I'm reviewing ever single item that has passed through my hands and onto my clothes rail. Every scrap of fabric that has graced my over flowing drawers and even more impressively, the pile on the floor in the corner. I start off really well, with every intention of brutally throwing away skirts that are now too big (thanks to moving away from home and having to cook meals for myself, i lost a lot of weight, two dress sizes in fact, that i have no desire to gain back) discarding dresses that are way too radically patterned to be even considered kitsch. But when i get down to it the pile of 'I will wear it again someday, somewhere' gets increasingly bigger. In the end, I did get down to it and i was brutal. It left my clothes rail full still and my room a lot tidier. I have sold majority of these items on Ebay but some i have kept because i seen potential in changing them into something new and wearable. So here it is, my first post on how to alter a boring piece of clobber into something new. 

I chose to alter a dress i had that i never worn because it didn't suit me, but the colour was beautiful. I am going to change it into an elasticated waistband circle skirt. 

Much more my style.

What you will need to magic your old dresses into something wearable again:

      1. An old dress to alter     

      2. A needle and cotton (or preferably a sewing machine)

      3. A pair of sharp fabric scissors

      4. A strip of elastic (about 4cm thick)

      5. Sewing pins

Step one: Get the dress.

So this is my old dress which is going to be the basis of this little project. Lie on a flat surface, using sharp textile scissors, cut across the middle section of the dress, 

<-------  which is here


You will end up with what looks like a square of fabric, if careful you will end up with what is a cylinder of material. So no need to sew in any side seams for the skirt.

Step two: Pinning the waist band.

We want to create a hem that is big enough to accommodate your elastic, mine was around 4cm wide, i folded the waist inwards and began to pin along the seams edge. I pin side-ways as not to catch the hems material in the middle, so its like a small tunnel for the elastic to sit in. Once its pinned all along the edge we can sew! I had to hand-stitch mine with a pale blue cotton to match the fabric colour but using different colour cottons can make it look   quirky so experiment! Once sewn all along the edge i left a small opening in the natural seam of my dress to thread the elastic through.



Step three: Get threading!

I learnt this handy trick years ago in my textiles class at school, you fasten a safety pin horizontally along the elastic. This then acts as a 'guidance' for when the elastic is out of sight and in the created hem pocket.
*Little tip, don't accidentally let the pin unfasten whilst   threading. Ouch!


Step four: Finishing touches!

Once the elastic is threaded through, stretch it to the desired length, this will then create the 'paper-bag' waist effect on the waistband of the skirt. Snip off any extra elastic that isn't needed and the sew together, then finally tuck in the seam and sew along the edge to neaten up. 

You can pretty much do this with any old dress, preferably dresses that aren't extremely fitted otherwise you wont have enough 'spare' fabric to create a ruched edge :) Hope this all was helpful and made sense. I'd love to see if any others use this to create a 'paper-bag' waist skirt.



                           

                           Love, Madison