Late summer dress refashion!

Late summer dress refashion!

• 9.20.2011

It's still technically summer, you know... although with all the fall fashions I've been eyeing in magazines and on Pinterest, sometimes I forget.  But I just finished this little dress refashion that I cut out ages ago, and had to share it with you before the warm weather goes away entirely!  We often get late summers here, and the highs should be in the 80's this week!  I don't mind the warmth and sunshine at all.

So here's the story of this dress.  Like a year and a half ago, I picked up this rather hideous cotton print... jumper, I guess, from Goodwill Outlet because it looked like something I could turn into something else.  I guess I was in the mood for a challenge at the time.

It was homemade to begin with, out of a not-very-suitable lightweight quilting fabric.  I didn't know how I could possibly make it cute, so I held onto it for quite a while.

Then earlier this spring or summer I saw this page in People Style Watch.

I thought to myself, hmmm, that dress looks familiar--or could look familiar.

I pulled out one of my fave patterns, Cynthia Rowley for Simplicity 2497, and used the bodice pattern but made the skirt out of whatever I could (I made the ruffle first, from the existing bottom of the dress), and cut out a looong waistband.  I didn't want to mess with a zipper so I gave it an elastic waist, and it pulls over the head.  Like I say, a variation...

It was a bit of a pinch to cut everything out of the existing dress, but it worked!  The waistband is lined with a muslin, but besides that and the elastic, the dress is totally recycled!  And I even captured the look of Lauren Conrad's.

It's a very simple dress, even Lauren's version.  Simple soft v-neck gathered into the waist.

Definitely cutest with a belt!

I feel so powerful when I can make over a dress completely and it works.  Wahoooo!!!