Making more progress on my pile of thrifted stuff to fix up… this is probably my most involved Goodwill makeover to date, and I’m so excited about how it turned out!
The original: love the color, love the pleats, but they just kinda dissolve into a weird unflattering ruffly mess at the bottom. Seems like it could be a good idea if executed better, so here’s what I came up with…
First, I removed the sleeves. I’m going to add a waistband, so that will come out of one of the sleeves; the other sleeve will be turned into bias tape to finish the sleeve edges and inside seams [I took in the sides a bit and added some bust darts so it would fit better].
Sewing the bias tape around the sleeve edges, hooray! Also, I would like to add that making your own bias tape is not nearly as scary as one would think :D Here’s the tutorial I used, although I didn’t have a fancy bias tape maker - a pin works pretty well to help guide the folds if you pin it to your ironing board and run the tape under it like so…
After that, I cut off the bottom just above where the pleats stopped to get a clean edge, then picked out the ones that made it onto the bottom. I cut off the buttons/buttonhole edges then sewed the cut edges back together to get a clean front, then used a basting stitch to gather it up. I attached the gathered edge to one edge of the waistband I cut from one of the sleeves, then sewed them together, then I sewed the other edge of the waistband to the bottom edge of the bodice.
Et voila! A little bit of an improvement :) Now I gotta figure out what to wear with it!
