Refashioning: Dolce and Gabbana Inspired: Moo Moo to Modcloth

I was watching the 2016 Spring/Summer Dolce and Gabbana show on Youtube the other day. The show was all about Italy, and it ended with all the models coming out in these sweet little shift dresses celebrating different Italian destinations. I think they are precious.

Anyways, a few days later, I was in a thrift store and I saw this moo moo hanging on the dollar rack.

True to moo moo form, notice how the back is smocked and gathered with lines of elastic in the middle of the back. This will be important later. (Mini Spoiler alert! - No need for a zipper!)

I noticed a few of the medallions in the fabric said, "Royal Hawaiian Hotel," and I thought. . .It's worth a dollar trying to make my own destination dress!

First step was to cut off the sleeves.

Notice that the neckline is very large and is about to fall off the shoulders of the body form.

So, I pinched the dress at the shoulders and pinned them up about 2".

Then, I pinched in at the sides and the front princess seams and pinned my "pinchings" down to the waist, but no lower. I didn't pin anything in from the back, because remember how gathered it was with the smocking in the middle back? I didn't want to add any more fabric at my butt than was necessary.

Then, I took the dress to my machine. I sewed my pinned areas with a large basting stitch--just to make sure that they were in the right place before I sewed them down for real. (I've made too many mistakes jumping the gun here, which is why I highly suggest this step.)

This is what it looked like after the basting. Starting to look good, no?

Using my body form as a pattern, I cut the excess fabric off at the shoulders before adding sleeves. (I could have just made the dress sleeveless at this point and been done, but I like sleeves.)

Okay, I literally just took the same sleeves as were on the dress before. I didn't trim them or anything, even though they were too big for the armholes of the dress I now had. I kept them big so I could pleat them for a puffed sleeve look.

I sewed the sleeves together first and then pinned them, right sides together, to the dress.

The finished dress!

See the top of the sleeve? I added a pleat with the excess sleeve fabric.

Again, because of the stretchy smocking, I can get in and out of this dress without a zipper!

Because I didn't sew my inner seams all the way down past the waist to "nothing" (which would be true darts), the skirt part looks pleated and also adds fullness.

I think it looks like a dress from Modcloth now!

The End!

Refashioning: Making Clothing More Functional - Sleeveless Dresses into Skirts

Here is a little series I am doing in the "Refashioning" vein, but specifically geared towards changing "okay" clothing into more functional pieces (vs. hideous pieces into less hideous). I hope these entries give you some ideas!

Today's post is about how to turn sleeveless dresses into skirts. It really is as easy as cutting off the bodice and hemming the waist, but for those visual learners, scroll through the pictures!

A note before cutting, you will notice I laid the dress down with the front of the dress facing the floor. Now look at the picture below. I am lifting up the back bottom hem. I pulled it down below the front about half an inch or so. This is to allow for "butt lift." This is for those babies, who like me,..."got back."

So...really important. If your dress has a zipper and you want to keep it, make sure to zip it down just past the waist. Otherwise you will chop it off when you start cutting!

To hem the waist band, just fold it down twice about 1/4-1/2inch and pin it. Then sew.

Zip the zipper up to the top before you start stitching, this helps you keep both sides even.

That's it! Here's my finished skirt with one of my favorite T-shirts!

Here's another sleeveless dress I turned into a skirt.

Don't forget the zipper!!

I probably would never have worn these dresses as dresses because they were too high maintenance, but as skirts, they will get much more mileage!

The End!!

Simple Alterations for a Dress with a Gathered Skirt - Red Lace Dress

Remember when I made this Dolce and Gabbana inspired red lace dress? Well, ever since then, I try to be on the lookout for lace dresses. I got the one below from Goodwill for a dollar!! (Can you believe it???) It's obviously too big, so this blog is about how to do simple alterations to a dress with a gathered skirt.

First step is getting rid of those horrid armhole ruffles! They were actually sewn right in between the top layer and interfacing, so I simply cut them off, cutting really closely to the seam without snipping the important layers.

As you can tell from the picture above, the dress is just too wide for me, and the skirt is a tad long, making the dress look frumpy. 

There are several ways to go about altering a dress like this one. You could cut it apart and dart it and reattach the skirt. You could sew a seam from the arm hole to the bottom hem on both sides. I chose the method below because this dress has two layers to every part (lace over top a layer of white).

The first step in alteration was to sew a basting stitch about two fingers down from the waistband onto the skirt. This was primarily to keep the two layers together, but would also help me re-gather the skirt later when I reattached it.

A close-up.

In case it was too hard to tell from the pictures above, you can see the line I stitched onto the skirt here. (I'm pointing at it.)

The next thing I did was to cut right in between the waistband and the basting line I just stitched.

Here it is completely cut apart. See how important it was to baste the skirt before cutting? It stayed together in one piece this way.

Next, I sewed seams on either side of the bodice from the armpit to the waistband. I would have actually darted the bodice, except there is a little bit of elastic in the waistband and darting it would have made the waistband pucker weirdly.

Then, I trimmed the sides and overcasted the side seams.

Then, I grabbed the loose ends of the threads I used to sew the basting line and pulled at them and worked the fabric around until the skirt waist was the same size as the bodice waist.

Then, I pinned the bodice to the skirt, right sides together, and flattened the skirt back as much as possible to add a second row of pins. This second row was to help me as I sewed to keep the skirt gathers out of the way of the machine needle as skirt gathers like to pucker and jam in sewing machines.

This is after sewing and then overcasting the skirt to the bodice.

Then, I trimmed the excess fabric away from the waistband.

I look kind of gross here. It was the end of the day and I didn't feel like reapplying makeup!

It fits better now!

The End