Dress Mini-Makeover

Before

I've had this dress from Anthropologie for years, and never found it to be a very useful garment. It's a wool strapless dress, with boning.  I tried to layer it and put a t-shirt under it, or just covering it up with a cardigan, but it never fit right and who wants to wear a strapless bra in winter?!

 

After

 So I turned it into a skirt, by simply adding a waistband. I measured the width of the bodice and drafted a waistband using that measurement. I had to make the waistband about 4 inches tall because the zipper I had was a little long. The hard part was trying to seam rip the lining apart from the bodice. The outer waist band was sewn to the outer skirt and then inner waistband was catchstiched to the lining .

Now I have a useful skirt, that can be worn a million ways, rather than a dress that was never really worn.