Mini Tutorial: From trash to treasure

I bought this dress back in 2007 from Nordstrom, and loved it. Unfortunately, I only wore it a few times before the zipper broke. It sat in my closet for 2 years, and then when we moved, and my husband insisted I throw it out I snuck it into a box. We unpacked and it sat some more. I couldn't part with it, and knew I could either fix the zipper OR turn it into a skirt. Well after trying it on again recently I soon realized that there was no way it would work as a dress (way to small in the bust area), so that's when I decided to turn this into an elastic waste band skirt. This literally took less than 30 minutes and I now have yet another new piece of clothing to wear to work and out and about. Take a look at your closet and see if you have an old dress that you either can't fit into or is damaged and transform it into this very easy skirt!

Step one: Measure the dress to the desired length you want your skirt. I measure mine so that it would fall under my knee. Then cut the dress horizontally. Next you'll want to measure your elastic wasteband to the size of your waste and determine whether you want the skirt to sit on your natural waste or on your hips; it's all you to how you want to wear it.

Step two: Sew the elastic wasteband together (not pictured above) so that it makes a circle sewing the ends together. Make sure you double stitch the band. After you've sewn the band together pin the fabric to the band. You'll notice that the fabric will be much larger than the band. That's ok since you'll be pulling on the elastic wasteband as you sewing which will cause the fabric to gather together. Sew fabric onto the wasteband using a zig zag stitch. Stretch elastic wasteband generously (depending on how much extra fabric you have and how much you want it to gather). 

Step three: Voila, your skirt is complete! Now go try it on! (I gathered  mine more in the back and left it more flat in the front; this is the back view)

Finished product! 

I entered this project into the CSI Project