Prim Prom Dress to Polka Party Skirt!

Here's to hoping the hottest part of the summer is behind us!

With temperatures ranging around 90 every time I came home from work, lemme just tell you . . . there wasn't much going on but sitting in front of a fan and eating ice.

But we've been blessed with cooler weather, and lookee what I have for you! Refashions! Yay! :D

It all started with this dress.

It's so pretty!

 Don't let the moody picture fool you. That's not how I felt about this dress. I felt more like this;

omigoodnessi'msoexcitedeeeeeeeek! Like that.

And I even asked the Facebook HopeCycle followers what they thought I should do with it! Some great ideas, guys. :)

But first - look what I didn't show you!

It's a corset back - with a modesty panel! Sweet!

What to do?

I started by deciding where to cut, and pinning all three layers of the skirt together so they wouldn't shift.

Safety pins, so I can't stick myself :D

Aaaand chop!

Lopsided chop! That's okay, it's fixable.

Today I'll show you what I did with the bottom half!

All my pins still in place, I put the whole thing through the sewing machine to make sure it held together just how I wanted.

Lemme tell you . . . that was a lot of material to shuttle through!

All sewed together!

I then turned the skirt inside out . . .

Look, it has crinoline!

And then I pressed the top part down, all along the seam-line I'd just made.

Nice and neat!

Then I folded it over again, so I have a nice inch and a quarter waistband for my inch-wide elastic to fit through.

Measuring and EVERYTHING.

Next, I switched white thread into my machine and verrrry carefully sewed along the very edge of the waistband.

Verrrry slowly.

Then I threaded the elastic through the little gap I'd left (safety pin in the end of it, of course), and then sewed the elastic ends together and finished by sewing the little gap closed! 

And LOOK!

It's like a tulip skirt! <3 Just the teeeensiest bit of high-low action to give it character!

It makes such a cute tea-length skirt!

It's so wonderfully full and poofy!

I love it when you pair something soft and feminine with something more edgy

So yeah. This is one of those items that I might have a hard time letting go of. BUT it's for a good cause! Check it out over at the Etsy store - all profit from the sale will be donated to fight Sex Trafficking in America!

Mwa! <3