Saturday afternoon refashioning

I said I was going to refashion a top this weekend didn't I? And I stay true to my word! I bought this top/dress for 99p off Ebay:

There were things I liked about it and things I didn't like... I liked the bow on the back and the colour (I love purple) so I had originally thought about making a dress with the top part as the bodice of the dress. I disliked that horrible elasticated waist - why do they have to put them in? On a pear shape like me it just meant that the bottom part of the dress was too tight around my bum and the top part was too loose, not a good look. I also didn't like the length, it was not quite a dress but too long to be a top, I've noticed the high street seems to be in the habit of churning out tops/dresses that meet the inbetweeny criteria.

In the end I decided not to make a dress out of it, but instead to make it into a top, read on for what I changed...


I decided to make it more empire line so it came in under the bust, a shape which I know is much more flattering for me. So I marked a line under my bust and cut out the horrid elasticated bit along the line I'd just drawn. The skirt section I had left over was bigger than the bodice so I put in some gathering stitches and attached it to the new shorter bodice, it didn't require too much gathering. I then used this tutorial and my left over fabric to make some ruffly sleeve caps. It would have been nice if they could have been a bit bigger but I didn't have enough fabric left!

2 hours later...

Excuse the lack of ironing, this was taken as soon as it was finished! You can see the gathers a bit better in this pic...

 I know a lot of you may have preferred it how it was before, but I know that I'd rather have a cute top than something which doesn't suit me at all! The sewing isn't perfect but for 99p I can't complain! I'm sure you'll see it worn as part of an outfit within the next week!