dress revitalized

I love when inspiration hits, don't you? I was out shopping today and purchased this dress from Free People.

I LOVE it. It's the perfect summer dress. Maxi dresses are everywhere this year and being short, sometimes I feel like they overwhelm me. That was what was so wonderful about this dress. Being shorter in the front, not only do you not trip over your own dress, but it's much more flattering for those of us who aren't model height.

I'm about 5'4" and I LOVE long dresses. I could live in them, but many times mine just sit in the closet because I feel like they are too much for me to wear. I realized on the way home that I could repurpose some of those dresses in my closet by simply shortening the front. Yay!

Trust me, I'm not a seamstress, but if you can sew a simple hem, you can do this. I went by my Free People dress as an example and marked where the front of the dress hit on the front of another dress. (If you don't have an example dress, just try on the dress you're re-doing and mark where you want it to hit in the front.) Then I ever so carefully (not really) cut from one bottom side of the dress, up to that center mark I made and sloping down to the other side hem. I pinned a folded hem (probably approx. 1/2" hem - I'm not good at tiny hems). I ironed the hem after pinning (do this!). Then I sewed it up. This particular dress has a lining, so after doing the top layer, I essentially did the same to the lining, but made sure it turned out shorter than the top. Iron the hems again after stitching and voila!

I think I bought this dress last spring and never wore it. It touched the ground and it just looked too heavy for my frame. While the skirt is still full, now I show a little leg so it's much more flattering! This would of course work well with long skirts also. I hope you'll try something like this if you've encountered the same dilemmas as I have. Have fun revitalizing your wardrobe!! And thanks for excusing my pale whiteness in the photos :)

I'm off to shorten more dresses! Yay!