Prints Of Denmark

A friend bought a dress from eBay – having been attracted to the lovely print. It was well made, and the label proclaimed it to be Danish. But it was advertised as ‘medium size’ which it clearly wasn’t. Unless Danish women are all much slimmer than Brits. Which I am sure they aren’t.

Sandi Toksvig isn’t particularly skinny, is she? The dress was too small for my medium sized friend – but she didn’t want to waste it.

Could I do anything with it to make it wearable, asked my friend. The bust was way too small, but it did appear that there would be enough fabric to make the lower section into a skirt for her.

She had a few requests for me

1. Could I somehow retain the pretty blue buttons?
2. Could I keep the contrast belt?
3. Could I fix the red hem?
4. Could I re-use the lining in the skirt?

There wasn’t a lot of spare fabric – the bodice was full of darts and tucks – so no large pieces of fabric for a waistband. The red hem appeared to have been an amateur attempt at shortening the dress – it was just cut off all the way round, but quite uneven, with no attempt at hemming or finishing [quite unlike the rest of the construction]

I decided to make the skirt without a separate waistband – attaching the lining with a simple seam and topstitching all round to keep the top edge neat. Before sewing this seam, I put the four waist tabs in place to hold the sash. I turned the red edge to the inside and hand stitched a narrow hem. There was a fifth tab on the right shoulder strap – so I fastened the skirt at the side with an overlap and used that tab halfway down as a closure [and a hook and bar at the waist] Here is the finished skirt. It has a red tie belt, tabs with cute blue buttons, and retains the original little pocket. I hope she likes it!