#14: Retro Dress

Hey all. I've been working on a new project recently, but it's taking much longer than I had anticipated, and I've had a lot of interruptions, so it's not quite done yet. In the meantime, I'm posting another throwback to a dress I re-created over the Summer (which means few process pictures. Sorry.).

As I have no before photo, I found a dress online that had a similar flat before shape.

It had this flat shape...

 But it had a circular retro print.

...with this print.

I didn't do a whole lot to change this dress. I was looking for it to have more of a retro-modern feel that was suitable for the crazy Summer heat I talked about before.


First, I took off the long sleeves. I cut the sleeves into thinner strips and sewed them together at the short ends. Once I had one long strip, I folded it over inside out and sewed along the long seam, sewing one end closed. I flipped the newly-sewn strip inside out, tucked the remaining open end in, and sewed it shut. Can you guess what this is? Yep. A new belt. I like making belts with left over material ;)

New Belt

After this, I simply hand-sewed a straight under-over-under-over stitch between the arm hole and the bottom of the neckline just under where my collar bone would be. I pulled the thread taut and scrunched the material together before tying off the thread to give the neckline a bit of flair.

Close-up of the scrunched neckline

Marisa at New Dress a Day would recommend if you're on the go to do the "pinch and cinch" where you could just pinch the material together, and put a safety pin through to hold it in place. That could work here too.

Finally, I took 2 of my handy dandy binder rings and laid them on top of each other.

Binder Rings

While around my waist, I put the ends of the belt material through the center of both of the rings, and with each end of the belt, looped the belt end toward the side from which it came, around the top ring, and under the bottom ring. Done on both sides, this is a simple way to hold on the belt without tying it in a knot (and it kept with the circular theme!) Check out my super sophisticated ;P diagram below:

How to tie the 2-ring belt

Or maybe you'd like my ultra mega sophisticated handy dandy diagram below:

Steve was way better than Joe

On an aside, Steve from Blue's Clues looks quite different off the show. Glad he swapped out the green striped shirt.

Studly Steve

And that was it. Here's the new look (taken during the Summer):

After: Retro Dress

After

I loved the print, I loved the fit, and the new dress was super light and refreshing. I suppose I could even wear the belt around my hair and let the dress hang flat if I were to ever attend a retro-themed party or something.

I hope you liked this re-do. Here's a small teaser about the transformation I'm working on now. Hopefully it will come together soon!

My next re-do

 Until next time, blessings.