There’s still a few days left in the month of my birth, and I usually celebrate by making myself a new dress or buying a new dress (whichever I have time or money for!) Yesterday I was at Meijer and was itchin to find a good deal on a dress as I still hadn’t gifted myself my birthday dress. I found this gem not only on clearance, but clearance was 30% off so I paid around $7. It has been a WHILE since I’ve gotten such a great deal!
The dress fits okay. I know it’s meant to be flowy and probably worn with a belt. I did try that look out, but honestly I’m in LOVE with the prairie dress thing right now so I decided within an hour of owning this dress that it needed and wanted to be a skirt instead! So I grabbed my trusty scissors and began cutting.
It was a simple cut! I lined the skirt up so I could feel the seams of the skirt were touching and I cut straight across under the arms.
Then I took some sparkly stretchy waist band elastic that I had on hand and attached it to the outside of the skirt. The elastics’ circumference was smaller than the top of the skirt. To get the right circumference of elastic I just wrapped it around my waist and then gave it a little stretch so it was tight but not restricting. Then I cut it to get the right length to work with.
I like to have the material slightly less than halfway up the elastic for pinning and sewing. This leaves room for error if my material shifts a little while sewing since I don’t pin all of it. I overlapped the ends of the waistband and when I sewed that part I did a zig zag stitch. I pinned the ends in the back middle of the skirt. With the skirt still fully stretched and the elastic not stretched I continued to pin. I pinned the front middle and I pinned the elastic at both sides of the skirt. My material draped away from the elastic since it wasn’t pinned everywhere and it, the elastic, was smaller than the skirt.
Once everything was pinned I went to my sewing machine and with white thread I sewed a zig zag stitch to create a closure of the elastic where it overlapped. Then with a straight stitch I began sewing the elastic down to the skirt. I also sew with the outside facing so I can get that line of thread/sewing as straight as possible, but lining up the side of my foot with the edge of the elastic. Once a few stitches are established I can pull and stretch my elastic so it can grab material at all the points. Basically the elastic can stretch and the fabric won’t restrict it. I find it easy to grab the back of the material (what’s worked) with my right hand and I grab the front of the material (what’s about to be sewn) with my left and pull taunt until the material underneath is all going to make contact with the elastic. There are no gaps or puckers. I usually grab at two pin points, so on this skirt it was the back seam that was just made and the next pin which was a side. I continued to grab at the next pinned spot as I went. I’m sorry I didn’t take a picture of this, but I had to use both hands to do this! haha
Once that’s done, you’re done with a skirt!
Unless of course you want to make pockets. And OF COURSE WE WANT POCKETS!
So I decided to use the sleeves and I loved the ruffle so it was going to be my tops of the pockets. I used my hand to figure out how big I wanted my pockets. To create your pocket from a sleeve you’ll want to turn your sleeve inside out so you can sew along the bottom to close it up. (I wanted mine to be thick exterior pockets) You can see in the image on the far right where I’ve been placing my foot for sewing. This creates a 1/4″ seam. In the end (not shown in process) I also sewed the ruffles so they wouldn’t split away from each other and show that elastic that’s bunching them.
Then while wearing my skirt I pinned the pockets on. I wanted to make sure the placement was just right which is why I pinned them while wearing it. It’s kind of a sloppy pin job but I did want these pockets to be bubbly so I did pleat them at the bottom. I was embracing the ruffle to the fullest I think! I usually call these types of pockets, apron pockets. I’ve also seen them referred to as patch pockets. I also found it easier to sew my pockets on with the base of my sewing machine off. Your sewing machine likely has this option, you can remove it to make sewing shirt sleeves easier, and anything else you don’t want to accidentally sew all the way through!
And voila! A skirt WITH POCKETS for $7 and about an hour of my time! So what did you think? Do you have a dress that doesn’t quite fit right but would make an excellent skirt? Give it a try today!
I’m loving how this dress turned skirt came out! I can’t wait to wear it several several several times this summer! What a wonderful birthday gift to myself 🙂 Also sorry for the low quality/dark pictures, it was nighttime and my craft room is basically my entire basement haha. I’m sure my husband would like some space down here but I’ve pretty much claimed it all and it needs cleaned up bad! The problem is every time I clean I get distracted and just make stuff lol
I have a few other dresses that need altering and can’t wait to do them and share with y’all! Be sure to follow on socials for updates!
XOXO
-Robin
