Dress Recycling

I bought two of these dresses for the twins from Baby Gap a couple of years ago. Of course they have outgrown them and, as usual, Payton left a big stain right in the middle of the top of hers. I spent good money on these dresses and didn’t want one to go to waste.  Kennady doesn’t really need two of the same dress anyway, so I decided to turn the stained dress into a skirt.  It was super easy and only took a few minutes. Here’s how I did it:
I used my rotary cutter and ruler and just cut straight across the dress right below the stain.

The dress has a lining, so I did a basting stitch to keep the lining together with the dress and then zig zag stitched along the cut edge to keep it from fraying. Then I folded the top edge in about an inch and stitched along the edge to made a casing for the elastic. Just make sure to leave a few inches open so you can thread the elastic thru.

Once the  elastic was in,  I stitched the last couple inches of the casing closed and the skirt was complete. Now Kennady can choose between the coordinating dress or skirt. A girl needs options!
The skirt ended up being longer than the original dress was, so you could also do this with a dress that has grown too short. Just cut the dress across right below the arm holes, make that the waist and it will give you a few extra inches.