Upcycling #3 with one iteration

This time the skirt is one I made--earliest photo of it I found was an outfit of the day photo from 2010, so we'll say it was made in 2010.

And now it looks like this

although for a little while it looked like this

I didn't like the proportions of the skirt, so I picked out the stitches at the 'waist', cut off a few inches from the top of the skirt, and re-sewed

...which meant that I didn't have to wonder if the evidence of the original elastic waist would go away with washing/drying

The bodice is something new for me, too--Simplicity 8523 from 1998

which got reissued a year or so ago as Simplicity 8061 (which, if you look at that pattern envelope illustration...it's even the same illustration as this one, just with new prints, colors, and hairstyles drawn over the originals.)

My usual facings finished with serging, neckline edge stitching, and the facing tacked down by stitching in the ditch at the shoulder seams and the improvised center back seam

The improvised center back seam was a necessity brought on by the odd sized piece of cloth I was working with, which is a different black than that used for the previous two dress skirt upcycles.  This is the only picture I took of the back seam, showing it aligning with the center back seam of the skirt...and then I cut this all apart and re-sewed and didn't even check to see if the center back seams align so well now.  That's OK.

And, again, I ironed the sleeve hems before attaching the sleeve pieces to the bodice

Oh--I also ignored the bodice darts, folding out the extension before cutting, then using the length of the back piece to adjust the front length to compensate for the depth that wasn't taken up by the dart.

Here's a picture of how I sewed the sleeve hems, aligning the inner ironed edge with the inner left side of the straight stitch foot, giving a result as lovely as the rolled hem attachment, but without the hassle of using that for such short, already-seamed openings.

Once upon a time, I never would have dreamed of using a straight stitch foot, but now I almost never use a zigzag foot.  (and: Hello cat hair.)

Picked apart the side seams and added pockets.  When I shortened the skirt, the tops of the pockets ended up in the waist seam.  They're still pockets, it's fine.

That uppermost tier is not much wider than the bodice, and I'm not sure about how it fits over my abdomen, so this one will probably not leave the house, at least not without a nice obfuscatory jacket layer on top.