Hi friends, it being National Sewing Month and all, and people focusing on celebrating it with a sustainability theme, I’m happy to share this project with you.

My blog analytics tell me that the most viewed post on this blog so far is the one where I tweaked the armhole in this Lands End dress. It belongs to my daughter and the dress was suffering from armhole gaposis. Of course, mum can fix it. Here’s a link to that post. Fixing sleeveless armhole gaposis.

Well, ten years went by and said daughter still loves the dress but it doesn’t fit quite like it used to. To give it some more life, we decided to separate the bodice and skirt.

The bodice got all cut up to make her some sleep masks. I traced out her old mask, added seam allowances, added thin fusible fleece and sewed up the traced outline, remembering to insert elastic, and voila.

She can now sleep in without those pesky rays of sunlight.

What did we do with the skirt? See below.

The skirt pleats were opened up a little and adjusted to her new size, the back zipper below the waist was left intact, making sure to run some stitching across the zipper ends so the zipper-pull doesn’t zip up into the air. Then a waistband was added — pieced together with leftover fabric from the bodice. The new waistband is elasticated, but the 2 inches at the back zipper opening is not — which is where I added a button and buttonhole as a closure.

Between you and me, I ran a little roughshod with the button closure, but it does its work and all interested parties are okay with it.

Can the skirt be further re-made as time goes by? I’m already thinking of an apron. After that, who knows if I can come up with something —- before cutting it into cleaning cloths.

Refashioning is so oddly satisfying. No?

Samina