Red & Black Day 1: Turn a Dress into a Skirt

For day 1 of Red & Black Week, a tutorial on turning a shapeless dress into a skirt.

Sack-shaped dresses (with big shoulder pads, of course!) were fashionable in the 1980's. (Remember Andi's prom dress from "Pretty in Pink"?) I see lots of these dresses in thrift stores. One such find was this red and black dress. The top half looks like a baggy t-shirt, but the bottom half has tiered ruffles and would make a cute skirt.

Oversized dresses can also be rescued by making them into skirts. If you find a size 16 dress but you're a size 6, turning it into a skirt may be easier than altering the entire dress. The technique described below will work on most loose-fitting, pullover-style (no zipper) dresses. The only notion you'll need is a piece of 3/4" wide elastic cut to your waist size.

First, determine where you want to cut the dress. Measure and mark a line. Typically, you'd measure up from the hem. Because my dress had tiers, I measured up (7") from the top of the top ruffle.

Next, measure and mark a piece of fabric from which you will make the waistband. This piece should be 4" wide and the same length as the waist opening. It's easiest to take it from right above the waist cutline.

lines marked at 7" and 11" from the ruffle (11 - 7 = 4" for the waistband)

Cut along the lines.

middle piece will become the waistband

The next step is to make the waistband and create an opening for the 3/4" elastic to run through. The waistband should be a loop the same size as the waist opening of the skirt; one end of the loop will have an intermittent seam, allowing an opening for the elastic. To create this, place the pieces of the waistband with right sides together and stitch a seam 2.5" long, then skip 1", and then stitch the remaining .5" These measurements don't have to be exact as long as your longer seam crosses over the center line of the waistband and your opening is large enough for the elastic to run through.

If you took the waistband piece from right above the waist cutline, it will already be sewn together into a loop. Stitch over the original stitching line for the 2.5" and .5" seams, then snip out the original stitches to form the 1" opening.

black thread shows my new stitches; original red stitches were then snipped to create the 1" opening

Fold the waistband in half lengthwise, wrong sides together. Pin it to the skirt, matching side seams, center front and center back (shown by pins in the picture below). To ensure the opening in the waistband will be on the inside of the skirt, be sure the non-opening side of the waistband is against the outside of the skirt.

Stitch the waistband to the skirt with a sewing machine or serger (overlock).

stitched waistband

serged waistband

The final step is to run the elastic through the waistband. There are various tricks for accomplishing this task. I pin a large safety pin to one end of the elastic and use it to guide the elastic through.

Guide the elastic all the way around and back out through the opening so that both ends are sticking out of the waistband opening. Remove the safety pin and stitch the two ends of the elastic together. The elastic can then disappear into the waistband.

make sure the elastic hasn't twisted inside the waistband before stitching ends together

Done!