Upcycled Plaid Dress

                              

I found this dress at a thrift store.  When I saw it I knew that I loved the fabric, but it was really hard to see anything past the black velvet vest. I knew it was destined for the prairie, so I decided to save it's life and attempt a transformation. I'll show you the super simple steps I used to create a whole new dress.

Here she is in all of her original glory:

I couldn't wait to get rid of that vest and the shoulder pads, so first I unstitched the vest at the top of the shoulders and carefully cut out the shoulder pads:

Next, I measured from the bottom hem up and marked where I wanted to cut. (I also measured from the waist down just to make sure my line was even).  I left myself about 2" for hemming -- you can leave less if you have less material to work with:

Then I did the same thing with the sleeves by measuring from the shoulder down, leaving myself about 2" again for hemming:

Once I had everything cut, I folded the bottom hem up about an inch and sewed. Next I folded it over again about an inch and did the exact same thing. Then I repeated that same process on the sleeves:

Then I gave it some love from the iron and BAM! A new dress in about 30 minutes.

I added a belt to tighten the waist and to add some interest:

Belt: Topshop

Shoes: Ladygirl Vintage