Refashion: Summer Dress

It’s the last week of Refashion Runway and a winner is due to be crowned next week!

I haven’t made it through to this round, but pop on over for a refashion feast anyway and vote for your favourite!

So, this last challenge is themed “summer dress”. While it is winter here, I’m still really excited about this one. I found this “vintage” doozy a month or so back and knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.

The back pre-refashion

First I turned it around backwards (as below) and drew a new neckline.

I unpicked the lace (unsure what to do with it at this stage) and cut away the neckline,

then I sewed the back (formerly the front) together to form a deep “V”, tapering off the join in the lace for a nice mitered finish.

Then the sleeves were unpicked, salvaging all the lace as I went.I sewed two strips of the lace together to make one wide strip. Same again with the other two strips you see below,

then I unpicked the skirt and created a bodice from the top. I did this by pinning darts into the front at the waist and also below the shoulder at the arm hole, before joining these darts together over the bust to create a nicely tailored “princess seam”.

The lace strips were then attached to the bottom of the bodice where the waistline is.

The skirt was shortened, gathered and then sewn onto the lace.

Because the dress is so tailored, I added an invisible zip into the side seam too.

To finish off, the armholes were handsewn down and I used the excess skirt fabric to make bias binding for the new neckline (after I cut away that extra lace I’d left there at the start).

After hemming the skirt, I was all done!

I LOVE the back of this dress. Definitely my favourite part and something I’d like to repeat on another refashion sometime.

Here’s the before and after again for you: