Bridesmaid Dress Refashion

I don’t know about you, but I have a few bridesmaid dresses hanging in my closet that, while lovely, aren’t likely to get worn again. For my brother-in-law’s upcoming wedding, I decided to attempt to refashion this purple dress from Cheri’s wedding into something a little more casual. I gave myself enough time, though, that if it turned out badly, I could always

Cheri's weddingI assumed this would be a quick cut-off-the-bottom-and-rehem endeavor, so I carefully measured… and cut off a significant amount of fabric.

cutting the dressBut, since this was a floor-length dress, it didn’t just go straight down from the hips. It gradually belled out so that you could actually walk in the dress, and it had a little bit of a train at the back. I didn’t think about this when I first cut & hemmed it, but the end result was that the last 6 inches or so of the newly-shortened dress still had a distinctive outward slant – which looks rather awkward on a short dress.

awkward hem flip(I realize that this doesn’t look so bad in a photo, but it looked really awkward on me…)

So, I ripped out the last several inches of all 7 of the vertical seams and resewed them to be more parallel with each other, so that the hem of the dress falls straight down, rather than sticking out oddly.

finished refashionMuch better! I think it still needs something around the waist, and I think I can use the original sash, just wrap it around my waist twice to take in the extra length. But now my question is: knot in front, or in back? Or something else entirely?

knot in back   

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