The Purple Roses Dress - (mostly) no-sew dress refashion!

Inspired by the fabulous Refashionista, I got excited to try turning some old clothes of mine that I don't wear much into things that will fit better and be something I might wear on a daily basis. (This, combined with a few other events, is also the building block for HopeCycle Refashions, which I'll be presenting in another post soon!)

So here is my very first dress refashion!

It started out as a Bridesmaids dress in my lovely friend Rachel's wedding. I wore it to an Artist Series or two at school, but once I graduated, there wasn't much opportunity to wear it again.

And so the refashioning began!

I removed the bow from the front, held it up to me to approximate a knee-length skirt, and chopped it!

It looks lopsided here, but it really wasn't. At least . . . it isn't anymore.

I then looked up some rose-stencil ideas online, and got to work with my wood burning tool. Since the material is synthetic (probably some kind of polyester-satin-look-a-like), it melts incredibly easily. I just used the pointed tips of my wood burner to cut right through the fabric.

sizzle!

I placed a board nobody cared about underneath. That wood burner will burn straight through the carpet, so BE CAREFUL if you want to experiment with this! (I may or may not know this from personal experience . . .)

I did the same thing with the hem. My sewing machine wasn't in working order, and I didn't feel like hemming it by hand, so I cut a leaf/petal pattern around the bottom (through the outer material first, and then the lining).
  You'll also notice the black belt is gone. I was unsure about taking it off at first, since it was sewed into the zipper seam, but I decided to just rip the seams out and hand-sew up that little bit. Worked out just fine. :)

I also decided that the beading around the neckline and sleeves was too bridesmaid-ish, and had to go. THAT took a while . . .

Pluck . . . pluck . . . pluck . . . saving those beads for another project!

I continued the rose stencil pattern up around the skirt (which you'll see in the final picture), and did the same pattern along the sleeve hems as I did the skirt hem.

   There was puckering left along the neckline from where I'd seam-ripped out those beads, so I covered it over (or distracted from it) with a rose-vine pattern, my wood burner set on a slightly lower setting so as not to burn all the way through the material.

If you aren't used to doing this, I recommend practicing on scrap material first. I'm a reckless fool, so I just went for it.

And voila! Dress brought back to life in a cute new way, and will look good at both formal and more casual events - which was my hope.

This dress is going to be for sale on HopeCycle Refashions on Etsy- which I'll be talking about in my  next post! :D

Much love!
~Holly