Restyled

I love following along with Project ReStyle started by the lovely Miss Elsie Flannigan. Restyling random nick-nacks and other stuff from thrift stores is something I’ve been doing for a long time anyway, and since I had this dress laying around, and my sewing machine is up and working again, I figured it was about time.Let’s start with the before and after and work our way back…

As you can probably tell – it’s a really really simple alteration. But it took it from something I haven’t worn at all in the year and a half I’ve had it lurking around my room, to something i will absolutely be bumming around the beach in this summer.

All you really need is a sewing machine, some elastic, scissors or a nice round cuttery thing like I have here, and some sort of ruler to keep your line straight.

Since this dress already had a drop waste built in I simply just chopped the top off as close to right under the arm holes as possible (I kept the top as scrap and pulled the buttons off and saved them for future projects too)

Then it’s as simple as folding just a tiny bit over and sewing so the ruff edges will be hidden

Then folding about an inch or so (depending on how much room you need and have left at the top) and sewing that, but leaving an inch or two un-sewn to fish the elastic through.

Then its as simple as fishing the elastic through (I use a giant safety pin attached to the end of it to help it along) and sewing up the ends of the elastic once you’ve made it through and finishing off that last inch or so to secure it in.

that’s it!

Hopefully my directions aren’t too confusing…