Happy New Year! I know I need to start tackling that loooonnngggg to-do list for our house, but I couldn't resist sharing a quick sewing project I did just before Christmas.
Back when I gave the
tour of Roxie's room, I pointed out that there were lots of outgrown or no-longer-used items in her closet that needed to get put away in the attic. One thing in particular jumped out at me: her Christmas dress.
Yes, 11 months after that first Christmas, the dress was still hanging in her closet. When I went to get the Christmas decorations out of the attic, I grabbed the dress, intending to put it in the Rubbermaid container with all of Roxie's other outgrown clothes. I held it up for a minute, wistfully wondering if maybe she could somehow wear it again (haha). Then I noticed that the dress was actually quite wide, and that it might be possible to chop it in half at the empire waist to create a red velvet skirt for Roxie to wear this Christmas.
So out came the scissors:
I explored a couple ways to finish off the waist of the new skirt. My initial idea had been to simply attach a bare elastic waistband, but I didn't want to have to buy some wide elastic. I also thought it would be nice for the skirt to have some Santa-esque white trim like the dress had. So I ended up using some white fleece I had in my fabric stash to make a casing for the elastic waistband.
I am awful at visualizing things when it comes to sewing, so of course I pinned the casing for the elastic to the wrong side of the skirt.
Luckily I only sewed about 4 inches before I realized that the seam would be on the
outside of the skirt if I continued like that. So I ripped all those stitches out and repinned the casing for the elastic to the
right side of the skirt. But of course I forgot to take a picture of the
correct way to do things. This is why I do not write a sewing blog.
I sewed the casing to the
right side of the skirt using a zigzag stitch to allow for some stretch (leaving a gap at the back of the skirt so that I could thread the elastic through). The velvet fabric already had stretch to it, and I know from experience that stretch is necessary when trying to dress a wiggly toddler.
Then I threaded the elastic through. I used 3/8" elastic because it's what I had.
The elastic was 17.5" long. I had measured Roxie's waist and it was just under 17.5" (she's a skinny minnie), so I figured by the time I had sewed the ends of the elastic together the waist of the skirt would be around 17". Here's what it looked like after I sewed the elastic together:
I had no idea how to close the gap in the skirt, so I just tucked one end of the fleece casing into the other end (which caused the velvet to overlap itself a little) and finished sewing the casing to the skirt.
Then I hid the old buttonhole (and the overlap of velvet fabric) with the black satin bow from the original dress. I used the button on the inside of the skirt to reinforce the stitching where the bow was attached.
And here's what it looked like from the front:
I am very pleased with the outcome! Especially since (1) it fits Roxie and (2) it has survived two washings so far. That's really all I can ask!
As an added bonus, the top of the old dress became a cute holiday outfit for Roxie's beloved walrus:
So before you donate or store last year's Christmas dress, see if you can upcycle it into next year's Christmas skirt!
And, I promise, we'll be back to our regularly-scheduled DIY home blog soon!
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I'd love to get your feedback on our plans and hear about your own experiences. Tell me what you're thinking!