New Dress With Help Of Old Dress

Make a dress from scratch with help of an old favourite as a pattern!

Posted by Anna S.

About

I was in Malawi recently with school and bought a lot of chitengas(fabric to wear round your waist) which we needed to wear in the villages. Back home I wanted to do something with them so that they don't just collect dust in my wardrobe. So I made this dress, which I'm kinda proud about, as I have never sewn anything from just fabric before.

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You Will Need (4 things)

  • Fabric
  • 6 Old Dress That You Like The Shape Of
  • Sewing Machine
  • Scissors

Steps (5 steps, 180 minutes)

  1. 1

    Get your fabric.

  2. 2

    Fold your fabric in half and put the folding at the top (up by where you want the straps of the dress to be). Then put your old dress on top of it.

  3. 3

    Cut around it with seam-allowance. If you are like me and usually mess up, then make that A LOT of seam-allowance so that you have space to make mistakes.

  4. 4

    I cut my straps much wider and made both front and back much higher up than the other dress I used as a pattern. But do as you prefer.

    Then hem it all round and sew it.

    I tried it on a lot in the progress as well, so that it would get just right and so that if something went wrong I could fix it easily. Just a tips.

  5. 5

    The dress did not come out as fitted as I wanted it. But instead of trying to fool myself that I could fix it, I took a piece of leftover-fabric and tied it as a belt. Worked pretty good!

    And DONE!