DIY: Make a Cute Dress out of a vest and skirt

Let's Make a SIMPLE CUTE DRESS 

(using a vest and a skirt) 

OK... So like most females, I have some issues with clothes hoarding, I always think I'm going to want to wear that pants some day, or I might like to use the pattern on that one top another day so it's incredibly hard for me to part with clothes I like. BUT, seeing that I no longer have any space in my wardrobe for anything extra, I need to clear the clutter. I was going through some of the clothes I had not worn for a while and decided that it might be fun to just combine two beloved pieces of clothing and make a dress :)

Here's what you'll need:

• A vest
• A skirt that's too big (that can fit easily over your ribcage with room to spare)
• Scissors
• Needle and thread (for hand-stitching)
• Sewing machine
• A belt (I used some ribbon that I had left over from some other craft projects)
• An active imagination and an open mind (just in case things don't quite turn out well)

Here's what you'll need to do:

(1) First you'll want to cut and fit your separates. Try on the vest and mark (with a pin, chalk, or by eye-balling it) where you want the top part of your dress to end. Leave 1" allowance from this point and cut vest here.

(2) Then, take your too large skirt and using needle and thread (or pins), make four 1" (one inch) darts to the back of it, two darts on either side of a 3" gap is what I used. This gives the dress some volume and a nice shape at the back.

(3) Then with needle and thread, hand stitch the vest to the skirt with the skirt overlapping, then try it on to make sure that it achieves the look you want. Alternately you can pin them and try it on but I always prefer just making a loose hand stitch.

(4) Does it fit well? Great! Once you're satisfied, crank out your sewing machine and straight sew the skirt and the vest. At this point you can leave it as is, or add a belt to the middle. I used a piece of ribbon and just secured it with a few pieces of fashion tape to the middle piece and tied it in a bow at the back, since I want the belt to be temporary.

Voila, there you go, a simple cute dress out of a vest and skirt, and made with minimal effort.

Variations for a belt:

You can also stitch a cloth over the joining part, I used a ribbon because it's cheap and shiny enough for the look I was going for. Alternatively you can always wear it with an actual belt.

Random thoughts:

I really enjoyed this project due to its simplicity, since you're literally just sewing two separates together. Took foreverrr and a day to upload because I just wasn't getting any time to get the pictures looking fit for uploading.

Next project: make a cute dress from scratch! (Just need to get some money to buy the material :/ Read and enjoy :)