I was thrilled I discovered this beauty in one of my fave online vintage shops:
Sure, this vintage dress is an awkward length and has an annoying elastic waist BUT it’s a nearly perfect match for one of my fave 1980’s childhood frocks so I just had to have it:
My new/old dress definitely needed a refashion so let’s take a peek at exactly what I did + how to shorten a dress from the waist:
First, I removed that gross elastic from the waist – it was so old it had started to turn to powder!
Then decided what length I wanted the dress to be and measured and chopped the excess fabric from the middle of the dress which not only allowed me to keep that fabulous graphic on the bottom of the skirt completely intact but also removed that ratty original waist seam, hooray!
I popped the top of the dress into the bottom with right sides facing and raw edges lined up and added a couple of pin tucks to the center of the front and back to shrink the waist and allow the side seams to match up as well.
Then sewed them together – stitching a zigzag over my finished seam for extra strength and to prevent fraying.
A fantastic result that fits perfectly!
I’m quite certain that 10 year old me would be proud!
If you’d like to refashion your entire wardrobe for pennies yourself enroll in my E-courses right over here:
and start your sustainable lifestyle journey with my groovy CoaR tutorial E-book collections right here:
Cracking job – love the final dress, it’s gorgeous!
Cheers my dear! I’m super chuffed with the result 😀
To be honest, I was a bit skeptical when I saw the “before” pics. But you saw the beauty of the dress and made it shine!
Thanks very much Stephanie 😀 It was a pretty simple refashion but definitely took some creative thinking to actually get started…
Love this tip!! 🙂
Cheers Yvonne 😀 I often find fab vintage frocks with fab printed skirts that need to be shortened, this method not only allows me to keep the groovy patterns on the original hems intact but also easily takes in the waist when needed 🙂