Finally!  A use for those worn once, bridesmaid dresses!  Solid, intense colors, with sheen, are saturating the runways.  Now, is the time to finally pull out those unused bridesmaid dresses and make something fabulous and trendy that you will actually wear!  This project uses several dresses that totaled twelve dollars at the Salvation Army.  Pretty good deal, considering this is definitely a unique, one of a kind, handmade dress now .

 BEFORE

  AFTER

 AFTER

One of the garments was a strapless, form fitted, simple red dress that I used as the under structure.  A wrap skirt with a pretty pattern, was used as an accent fabric.  I’m also using a large bridesmaid dress, made of what I believe is a nubby silk.  This dress was handmade originally, and without tags, so I have no way of knowing for sure if it’s silk.  Upon closer inspection of the bridesmaid dress, I realized it had a ton of red tulle tucked underneath…score!!!

 

 HOW I MADE IT

I began by cutting a piece of fabric, in an “A” shape, from the largest dress.  This piece needed to be large enough to wrap completely around the hips.  I finished the edges, pinned and stitched to the waist.

 

I next started tucking and pinning to get a layered, balloon look.  Once everything was just right, I hand stitched in place.

 

Now it’s time to add yet another layer.  Pieces of tulle were added around the waist band and pinned in place.  The beauty of tulle, is that it doesn’t need hemmed or a finish stitch.  The tulle pieces were longer than the dress, this allowed plenty of freedom to tuck, cut and pin.

 

Next, I cut out a piece of the patterned fabric, finished the edges, and pinned to the waist band.

 

Two triangle shaped pieces were cut out and pinned to the bodice.

 

I then cut strips of the bridesmaid dress, about seven inches wide.  The edges were folded over and pinned throughout the bodice.  There are no rules to this, be creative!

 

It was now time to add the double shoulder straps.  I cut long strips of fabric from the patterned skirt.  The strips were double the width I needed, so that I could fold them in half and finish stitch the edge.  The finished straps were about 1 1/2″ wide.  They were pinned into place and stitched to the dress.

 

The final touch was the silk band around the waist.  I found a wide, curved belt in my closet to use as a pattern.  I traced the belt onto the silky fabric, cut it out, finished the edges, pinned, then stitched into place.

 

This dress turned out beautiful from every angle!