A Dress for Me

It has been a LONG time since I made something for myself. Last night I stayed up all night (no sleep) to make this white dress for choir this morning. I made the pattern and sewed it all together. I haven't sewn for myself since I lost weight 2 years ago so had to make a new sloper too. Since it was the middle of the night I had no one to help me with fitting so I'll be making a few minor fit changes this week but it worked for choir. Thanks Amy Gold for keeping me awake through (most of) the meeting.

Upcycled Skirts: Alterations for Kids

Of course I could have bought my girls brand new dresses for Christmas but where's the fun in that? They both already had dresses they love, love, loved but there was just one problem: the dresses didn't fit, fit fit.

Cora got this dress two years ago and only wore it a few times before it was too tight across her broad muscly shoulders. She loved the dress so much though that she couldn't give it up (her American Girl has a matching dress) so it has been hanging in my closet for 2 years waiting for some magic to be done to it.

After some playing and fussing and testing and tugging we decided that it would make a perfect skirt. It was so super easy to do. It already had a zipper down the back and was fully lined. We took advantage of these two characteristics. We cut the skirt off 2.5 inches above the gather (just under the arm holes), turned the raw edges of the shell and lining towards each other and topstitched around the top. We ended up with a nice waistband, a usable invisible zipper, a nice long skirt and even the ribbon belt from the original. She was sooooo happy with the end result. It took me a grand total of 8 minutes to complete it.

We found the cute top/shrug/necklace combo at Ross in Mililani for a grand total of $5.99. Cora was so very happy with her super cute outfit.

Afton never owned this cute skirt. It was mine. I had it out one day because I was contemplating cutting it down 6 sizes to fit my newly fit bod. She instantly fell in love with the bias cut lightweight wool plaid and insisted she needed it more than I did. So I cut it down 10 sizes instead of 6.

Because of the oh-so-forgiving bias cut we didn't have to move darts or anything for her. We simply chopped a ton of fabric off each side seam, serged the new edges, adjusted the hem at the side seam to accommodate and adjusted the waistband too. It was a 20 minute job. She topped it off with this cute top and belt combo that she found at Ross for $7.99.