Prom Bomb to Picnic Chic!

Okay, so I know "picnic" and "chic" don't actually rhyme, but they look like they do . . . so we'll pretend. :D

Sunny yellow! nice and simple.

 But what are these??

Ack! Stains!

This dress needed a cute summery update! Fortunately, I had the perfect material to cover that top bit.

yellow and white checkers!

Light and airy - and it'll bring a casual touch to the dress!

I started with the chop.

Knee-length CHOP!

I took the length of checkered cotton and measured it against the bodice.

And by 'measured', I mean 'eyeballed it'. And then cut it.

Next came a quick gathering stitch along the bottom!

Zip it through!

And then pullllll that thread!

But don't break the thread. That ruins everything.

Once my material was all gathered nicely, I pinned it to the bodice!

Why this way?? Because . . .

I wanted that little bit of ribbing to still show, and I wanted the gathers to start right above it . . . so I knew I'd have to do some hand sewing.

Like this, with the hem tucked under, sewing underneath/through the ribbing!

Before finishing the new bodice, I realized it needed to be ironed.

I really need to start ironing things BEFORE I sew them together.

Then I pinned and hand-gathered the top, rolling the hem under as I did so.

You can barely see them, but there's safety pins GALORE.

I thought I'd be able to machine sew the top part, but when I tried it, it looked AWFUL. Blegh. So back to hand-sewing, with a slipstitch!

Keeping it invisible!

Phew! On to the skirt!

That lining was SUPER fray-tastic, so it needed to be addressed first.

Rolled and pinned!

And I even pressed that hem before sewing it. ... Are you supposed to do that? Or wait until after you've sewed it? But I thought it would make it easier.

Except ironing a hem that has pins in it is not easy at all. I'm so silly.

So then I sewed it up!

I turned the dress inside-out, btw, so the hem will be on the inside. Just so ya know.

Somewhere around here I realized that the dress needed ironing too. Sigh.

Seriously. Iron things first. It's just better.

Now I could've done the exact same thing for the skirt's hem, but I wanted to it to be unique, and I had the right tool for the job!

If you remember this tutorial, I did a lot of cutting with my wood-burning tool. I'm bringing it out again!

Doesn't take much heat to melt right through synthetic polyester!

I decided to make a scalloped edge, and added a little faux-eyelet detail in there, just for kicks.

Cutting out tiny circles!

Remember - if you're going to experiment with this, make SURE you've got a wooden board that you don't care about underneath! DON'T use plastic, cardboard or carpet. Seriously.

Now, I could've just been done right there, but I wanted a little more modesty than those teeny little straps were giving me. Time to add sleeves!

I started by gathering the left-over checkered material, right down the middle.

It's a little thicker on the left side because this scrap had once been a kitchen curtain/valance. Hah!

I then wrapped one side of it around one of the straps, leaving the gathered middle just at the outer edge of the strap.

Does that even make sense?

I did that with both straps, cutting the excess off just a little below the top edge, so I can hem it.

Eyeball and SNIP!

Instead of attempting to hem the inner material (the outer edge is pre-hemmed, courtesy of whoever made this scrap curtain), I wrapped the extra material completely around the strap.

Now you see it . . .

Now you don't!

So now there'll be no loose edges when I sew it together - which took more hand-sewing all the way around. And that's it!

Ready for summer!

Not too shabby! :)
I'm pretty happy with how this one came out - what do you think?

This dress is for sale at the HopeCycle Refashions Etsy store for only $50! Go check it out! All profit from your purchase will be donated to fight Sex Trafficking in America!

Mwa! <3