The Wannabe Regency Dress

I've had this dress in my refashion closet for a while, and I must admit that I quite like it as-is.

Too 90s?

It fits perfectly, I absolutely love the print on the fabric, and it's very comfy.  That empire waistline also puts me in mind of one of my favourite books/tv adaptations.

Puts the 2005 movie to shame!

But much as I liked this dress, I knew that I wasn't all that likely to wear it in its current form.  Long skirts and wet weather don't mix, in my experience, and the fabric was a little too stuffy to wait for a summer maxi dress.

The first step towards improving this dress was removing those fake-belt side-tie things by snipping them off as close to the seam as possible.

Snipping away the outdatedness!

Then I cut quite a bit off the bottom to make this dress a length I was much more likely to wear!

Fold as you cut to keep it even, Steven.

I folded over the bottom edge twice and pinned it to clean up the unfinished edge.

Fold twice, pin once!

Then I stitched it down.

And ironed the new hem.

Pressing hems makes them look more professional.

This all improved the length of the dress greatly, but without those side-ties there was no way to give it any shape.  I looked through my elastics and ties drawer, but I didn't have a length of narrow elastic that was long enough to go around my waist.  Fortunately, I did have one that was half long enough.

I turned the dress inside-out and pinned the elastic to the back, from side-seam to side-seam, with a few other pins to keep it even.

Do you see my plan?

Then I stitched the elastic down, stretching it out as I went.

Here's the end result!

Me like!

 And the back!

Elastic gathering!

See how the elastic gathered the fabric, giving the dress a waistline?

Sometimes it's hard to refashion something that you like to begin with, but that you know, deep down, you'll probably never wear in its existing form.  After months of biting my nails over this one, I finally dug into it, and I'm glad I did!  Have you ever had a refashion that hurt to start?