Confession: I have a humongous mending pile…some items have been in there for two years. This little dress is one of them.
I finally got around to doing what I had planned when I bought this little dress at Kohl’s for under $5.00. It was much shorter than what I like to wear but I still thought the fabric was fun. Since the portion just beneath the bodice was already shirred, and it had a tie, I figured it would be really easy to turn this dress into a skirt. And it was!
Lucky for me, the shirred part already had a little extra fabric that you see me folding down in this next picture. 
So all I had to do was cut the bodice off…
…and sew the tie every 8 inches or so around the top of the new skirt. I left a gap big enough that the shirring would still allow me to put the skirt on over my hips.
You can see a little better where I sewed the tie onto the skirt in these next two pictures.
Front:
Back:
15 minutes later, and the little dress is now a cute, sorta high-waisted skirt. I LOVE quick and easy projects. I have a couple more dresses similar to this one that I will either do the same on those, or add my own shirring or elastic to make a into new skirt.
It’s very cute!
So cute! I love quick projects like that one, especially when they turn out so well.
i love it! thanks for the tutorial! i’m definitely going to try this with one of my dresses.
Wow, I love this! Must try this with one of my fave dresses I haven’t worn in a long time–it would make a fabulous skirt. :)
Hi!
I did that once with a “maxi” dress that on my 5’10” frame came down to mid-calf. A quick nip and tuck later and it’s one of my favourite maxi skirts of all time.
From the way yours looks ( = beautiful) I’m sure yours will too!
That’s funny, I got the yellow striped dress from Kohl’s around the same time and did the exact same thing! But your’s is cuter cause I like purple a lot more than I like yellow. Good job!
Cute! And a perfect model!
What a brilliant idea – I think it looks much better as a skirt!
This is adorable!!! Makes me wish the skirt was mine… I absolutely LOVE it!
Its like you read my mind! I have a dress in my closet that I paid like $3 for and I had pulled it out just a couple of weeks ago to do the same thing with it! :)
So cute Christie!
oh i love it love it love it!!!
I did this with a dress I got from Target on clearance. It was a similar shaped with the gathered smocked high waist. It is soo much better as a skirt!
Thank you so much for this post. I want to let you know that I posted a link to your blog in Creative Busy Bee Craft Inspirations, under the Page 5 post on Aug. 12, 2012. Thanks again.