Retro Refashion

Last week I added another goal to The List, bringing it to a total of 80 so far!

080. Refashion/upcycle 3 items of clothing

At the weekend, I finished the first one, and I'm dead chuffed with how it turned out.
I started off with this retro dress, purchased last year at one of To Be Worn Again's kilo sales.

 When I bought this dress, I thought it was a bit 'costumey' and wasn't sure if it would fit (no changing rooms at the kilo sale!) It turned out  painfully tight around the ribs!

But I love the fabric and wasn't going to let the tiny sizing stop me. I just needed motivation (which came in the form of Channel 4's This Old Thing. Hurrah!)

For this refashion, I only used the skirt. I'd already unpicked it before I thought to take a picture, hence the slightly skewed pic above!

What I did:

1. Measured and cut the skirt to knee-length and set the leftover aside for the bodice.
2. Unpicked all the lace
3. Resewed the seams on the 'new' skirt, sans lace
4. Made bodice, attached to skirt and added zip
5. Finished top edging of dress and added straps
6. Hemmed!

And here is the result...

Okay, so I messed up in a couple of places and the bodice doesn't fit as well as I'd hoped (despite all the checking and rechecking and accidentally stabbing myself with pins!) But I'm still pleased with how it turned out, and it's lovely and cool!

Dressed it up here with a charity shop belt, handmade necklace and bead bracelet, plus a retro bracelet from a boot fair.

Will be posting about this on my craft blog, Unfortunately Oh!, in more detail.

P.S. My laptop is on its last legs, with imminent HDD failure rendering it pretty much unusable. I'm posting this from my parents' PC and won't be able to make too many updates until my replacement laptop arrives. More Folk Tales of the Sea People will be coming soon!