I decided to start Selfish Sewing Week a little early this year. Well actually most of my sewing is for myself, so I guess you could say that every week is “selfish” in my sewing world. But none the less, I decided for this years Selfish Sewing Week, not only would I make a few cute new things for my spring wardrobe but I would also try to revive some of my half-ass/not so great projects that I started awhile back and never finished. And this little black and white stripe dress was one of them. This dress started out as a fitted maxi dress that I made using the bodice and sleeves from the Out and About Pattern and a self drafted maxi skirt using the same idea as I did for this dress. After all was said and done, I realized that vertical stripes on a fitted skirt was not for me:
I knew I was never going to leave the house in it. The stripes are not forgiving and it showed every ounce of cheese dip I had eaten in the past three years. I was not excited. And of course Will’s response of “Nice but is it supposed to be that tight?” meant only one thing: The dress had to go. But I was not going to let close to 3 yards of beautifully soft jersey knit go to the way side. So after lots of seam ripping while I watched one very thrilling episode of The Walking Dead, I was left with a finished bodice and sleeves plus the re-usable fabric from the skirt.
How I made it work: To recreate the skirt, I removed one of the side seams but left the other one which intact. This gave me one large piece of fabric. I opened up the fabric and cut it in half width wise to give me two equal sized pieces: one for the front of the skirt and one for the back for the skirt. Right sides together I sewed these two pieces together. Then used a long basting stitch to make a gather on the top. After that, I reattached the gathered skirt to the original bodice and voile! Now I have a dress that is much more suited for my body type and one that I will actually wear out in public!
And for your viewing pleasure, here is the Before and After side by side comparison. What do you think? Did I make the right move? 
Tune in later this week for some more Selfish Sewing Week action from yours truly. And in the mean time, check out Indiesew.com for a great Selfish Sewing Week Challenge where you could win up to $400 worth of sewing swag! So start creating something that is just for YOU and maybe you could even win big!
