Monday, October 19, 2009

Tutorial ~How I Saved a Dress from being Thrown Away~


This was one of my favorite of Rachel's dresses. It is size 3T and now she is 4 years old. She is small for her age, so, it was perfect for a while. The other day I noticed that the upper part of the dress was too tight on her... so sad...

Also, she drew on the dress with marker and it didn't come off, I can't give it away or sell the dress either. At least, she was considerate enough to use matching colored marker so it kind of blends in.


The bottom part of the dress had planty of fabric, so I decided to make it into a skirt.

1. Cut off the top portion.


2. Straighten the edges.


3. Fold the edge twice and iron.


4. Leaving a 1" or so opening for elastic, sew the top.


5. Measure your little girl's tummy and cut the elastic, and thread through. Sew the ends of the elastic. Sew the opening closed.


That's it! Less than 20 min, she had a skirt. She can probably wear this for another year or two and I am really happy about that.

11 comments :

  1. cute cute!! great job! she can wear it forever now!

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  2. Fabulous tutorial!!! :) I could use this one. Thanks for sharing.

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  3. so cute. I have lots of clothes refashioning for little girls and think it's just darling what they do with old shirts and skirts. Love your tutorial as well. Bet your daughter loves wearing mommy's skirt....well, now it's her skirt.

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  4. It looks great! I love repurposing like that.

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  5. I am sooo glad I found your site! You are so talented & I love the ideas. I have this exact dress for my little girl & am running into the "tight arond the top" issue. HOORAY for your fabulous skirt idea.
    Thanks.

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  6. Hello Sachiko
    You are an amazing! i love your creative and so useful ideas. And thank you so much for sharing it all.

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  7. Hello Sachiko
    You are an amazing! Your ideas so clever, creative, useful. Thank you very much for sharing it.

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  8. You are very creative and make beautiful things that look awful on your little girl because they are too big. If you can sew as well as you do, why would you subject your child to looking so poorly in your wonderful creations. Make stuff that's her size. She'll love you for it and people will appreciate your creativity even more when they see your clothes fitting properly on a child rather than just hanging listlessly.

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  9. Marta-
    Thank you for your constructive (I decided to take it that way) criticism. I looked at the picture again, and I guess the big jacket she is wearing does look too big on her. But I bought that jacket for her to wear for a couple years not just one season.

    I usually make clothes one size bigger than I need to so she can wear it longer. Also, I don't make skirts any shorter than knee length, because I want to teach my daughter to dress modestly early on.

    I guess it all comes down to personal preference.

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  10. Thank you for the simple tutorial. I just successfully created a "new" skirt out of a short dress. Yeah! Total cost $.55 (because I had bought the dress at a yard sale, and elastic from a yard sale) Yeah! I never had the courage to try elastic, but it wasn't as hard as I thought.

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