I wasn’t planning on having a sewing Saturday yesterday but I ‘happened’ to open my sewing wardrobe to plan my next project and this dress looked so mournful waiting for a new lease of life and the weather outside was equally bleak that naturally it had to happen!

I haven’t done any alterations yet or any hacks to old clothes so I went off to the charity shop to purchase a garment which I could have a mess around with. This dress from Next instantly caught my eye as the fabric is gorgeous but it was several sizes to big and the length was rather frumpy, for a grand total of £3 though I thought it would definitely be worth it.

I wasn’t sure what to do with it but I knew I wanted it to be something I would wear as I really like the fabric. First things first though was to make it the right size, the back had a lot of excess fabric in it which needed taking out. I unpicked the top from the waistband and then just sewed the waistband back on but further up. I also had to unpick one side and bring the seam on one side in a bit at the top.

Even with the size fitted to me, I still looked really frumpy with the length – not the housewife look I’m going for! I messed around in front of the mirror for ages with some pins and a tape measure, very tricky to do on my own. I was thinking it might make a nice top or short dress but I wasn’t sure if I would wear it like that. Somehow I got to an asymmetrical hem which I just love and I think gives this dress the boost of fabulous it needs.

Lastly, I added a lace trim to the hem and neckline – this is mainly because I didn’t have matching thread to sew the hem and I wanted to disguise the messy black stitching!

So this is the final product! An ill-fitting, dowdy dress turned into a fabulous, fitted frock which somewhere along the line adopted a small amount of flamenco style – that wasn’t intended but I like it. I already have a party in mind to take this out for a spin to, I just need to go shoe shopping because that’s something I don’t think I can conjure up with my sewing machine.

I hope you like it as much as me, I’m off to raid my wardrobe for other clothes that need new leases of life!