Skirt-to-Dress Conversion #1: Swirl

So, in June of 2015, I made this skirt

And although it is one of many things I outgrew in the years after, I still kept it, for a while letting it ride up over my abdomen and accepting it as...just...shorter, then eventually shifting it to the category of "maybe I can do something else with it someday."

And I finally have!




Once I removed the elastic, there was enough room to fit--but I didn't want to put in more generous elastic and keep it a skirt, oh no.  Into the cloth stash I went to find another coordinating print from which to cut the bodice from good ol' Simplicity 9153

I will admit: I have more than enough of that homespun left that I could have made the bodice from that.  I probably have enough that I could make an entire dress from it.

But I didn't wanna.

I did leave the original skirt waistband in place, and that does enough to kind of emphasize how overwhelming that homespun would have been, maybe, if it had been allowed to overtake the entire bodice.

Also, I used up almost all of what I had of the bodice print, and I do enjoy using up cloth.  That wouldn't've happened with the homespun, not with this project.  (Someday I'll have a project to use most of it.  Someday.)

 I was able to bring the bodice print onto the skirt with a free-form patch pocket.

 I'm sure ther's a way to put a seam pocked into a finished bias swirl skirt, but I didn't want to spend the brain power that would have been required to figure it out.  No brain for welt pockets, either.  So.  A single pleated crescent it is.

Since the skirt was already hemmed, I decided to forego the use of the hem roller on the sleeves.  I pressed the hem after sewing the shoulder seams but before sewing the side seams, rolling the edges back out while sewing, then folding it back and stitching.

 I probably should do that with this bodice every time, because sometimes the hem roller does not want to cooperate (I'm sure it's user error...but...can't make a mistake with something you don't use...)

The back, pretty standard.  I will say, I free-hand altered the front neckline from the pattern's V to be round, so I could use the pattern's back facing piece and only had to finagle the front facing, cutting around the improv neckline and then using the given facing to get the width right (more or less) on the new piece.  I probably should create real pattern pieces for that.  Maybe.