Creative Outlet

I've had an idea bouncing around in my head for a little while now, but yesterday I brought the idea to life.

I've had this dress in my closet for a long time (a hand-me-down from my sister), but have never worn it, because it is made of stretchy/clingy material and just didn't look quite right or fit quite right as a dress. It "clung" in the wrong places if you know what I mean. Well, I've seen lots of these longish, flared out tops people are wearing these days and had the idea of transforming this dress into a long shirt instead.

So here's what I did:

The dress

The dress after I cut out 7 1/2" from the waist area.

(I took the extra fabric from the middle, rather than the bottom, because I wanted to keep the flared part intact. If I had hemmed it straight from the bottom the
shirt would have STILL clung in all the wrong places. :)

The "shirt" before stitching back together.

I also added 2 darts in the front bottom section because the bottom was "wider" than the top, so by creating 2 darts it helped bring in the bottom section so I could easily pin it together before sewing.

The shirt after being sewn back together.

A close up of the new waist area.

The bottom seam is where I sewed the pieces back together. The top seam is a "fake" seam I sewed to create the look of the band. It looked better this way than having just the single bottom seam.

A picture of me wearing it. This is a horrible picture because I was taking it of myself while looking in the mirror. When I wear it I'll try to get a better picture of me "modeling" it.

I had so much fun just playing around and seeing if I could get it to come out the way I had it pictured in my head. It is pretty close!