I've mentioned in the past that I'm a huge fan of Project Runway...
Well, I participated in a Project Runway competition !
I took an existing garment from my closet & turned it into something new.
With the summer weather in the past, I took a white eyelet strapless summer sun dress from my closet. With a seam reaper I removed the zipper & separated the top from the bottom. I decided to sew my 3 year old daughter a peasant style dress in size 3T. It's the Sweet Little Dress pattern (from Leila & Ben) although I made the sleeves longer. This is the 4th dress I've sewn using that pattern... the 1st one was green, the 2nd one was repurposing a vintage pillowcase, & the 3rd one was repurposing a man's white shirt.
After I separated the pieces I ironed the fabric from the bottom part of the original dress to smooth out all the winkles in order to get the most accurate pattern pieces cut out. I also used an iron to form the elastic casing at the neckline of all of the 4 pieces (dress front, dress back, & 2 sleeves).
Now here's the really fun part (& what I really love about repurposing "using what you've got")... I was trying to figure out where & how to add the elastic on the sleeves , well this unique piece has this lovely lace trim & it's attached to the eyelet with a 3/8 inch seam which after I sewed it down made the perfect casing for the 1/4 inch elastic !
I wanted to add a splash of color, so I sewed a gold colored sash (a nice color for the fall).
So that's my upcycled garment & I only used the fabric from the bottom of the original dress. That's all it took to make size 3T, but I have to say that it was exactly enough to sew a size 3T, the size 4 pattern would not have fit on this amount of fabric. So I still have the fabric from the top of the original dress & the zipper to repurpose for a future project.
Oh, I also forgot to mention that the original dress had a lining & I did use the lining fabric to line the peasant dress, but just in the dress, not the sleeves.
