Tomorrow night will be full of alcohol, dancing and celebrating (hopefully) as it is results day. Therefore, I was faced with the usual dilemma: what on earth do I wear?! So tonight, one of my fabulous fellow goldfishies gave me the idea to customise one of the dresses I have. Here's the before, not particularly flattering, though I loved the fabric:
(sorry it's so dark, there was no natural light by this point!)
I decided I was going to hack the sleeves off to make it a bit nicer - the sleeves were very baggy so even with a belt around the middle I felt a bit sack-like - not exactly great for confidence! Plus it made it too hot in dark, sweaty clubs (yum yum). I turned it inside out and cut the sleeves as close to the seams as I could all around and under the arms, leaving some extra at the top either as a fluffy-looking detail or to give me something more to attach embellishment to later on. Here's the after - sorry about the strong flash giving you all a view of my lovely nude bra, but it was really too dark to not use it by this point!
Now, I was left with a lot of fabric - those sleeves were big. So I figured why not go the whole hog, I was feeling creative! So I made a skirt too!
Now this was really easy, and even the most inexperienced seamstress-to-be could make it, honestly. Both the sleeves fit snugly around my hips, so that meant I could pull them up over them and wear it as a comfortable-fitting high waisted skirt. So I slipped them both on, then slid a cheap bodycon skirt underneath, positioning them so the chiffon was about an inch higher up than the skirt on my waist. Then I folded the edges of the sleeves over the skirt waistband and pinned them all into place. I slid it off over my head and tacked all around the waistband, as this would hold it into place better than just pins, and it needs to be reasonably secure. I set up my sewing machine and sewed about 2cm from the edge with a zig-zag stitch - they stretch a lot better than straight stitches and as I didn't put a zip in at all it needed a little bit of extra give. That was it! I think I'm going to fit a thick elastic waistband onto it though, because the current one's a bit thin and it wouldn't be very good for waist belts. I'll update if I decide to do that!
Have some photos:
I'm really pleased with the final result; my only problem now is that I can't decide which to wear tomorrow night!
Wow! It looks gorgeous and I am seriously impressed with the skirt, I wish I was at all creative with clothes!
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