Refashion Your Fashion, an Upcycling Tutorial

Hi Ellie and Mac Readers! This is Sequoia, from Sequoialynn Sews and today I am writing on a topic that I spend a lot of time thinking about...Upcycling! As a person who used a ton of fabric I really do make an effort to not just toss fabric into a landfill! I save anything big enough to make a neckband or pocket. I have also met a few people in the sewing community who will gladly take the tiny scraps off my hands too! So that brings us to today’s post...


Refashion Your Fashion

This idea came about because I have a lot of clothing in my closet and some items don’t get nearly enough love. I decided I would pull out an Ellie and Mac Sunny Day Dress to refashion! I love the Sunny Day pattern. I have 3 of them in total, but this one makes my heart sad. I hated that I didn’t have enough fabric to match my stripes and the amount of stripes was a  wee bit overwhelming even to me!

So this is the photo of my original dress. I decided that I wanted to split the bodice and the skirt portions first. I just cut the two pieces apart with my rotary cutter, but scissors would work as well.

Next, I decided to use the bodice and decided I would create a new skirt. I turned to my favorite pattern to ‘borrow’ a skirt from...Be Breezy! This time I used the regular length skirt and I made no adjustments to the waist size. I choose to use some black Double Brushed Poly I had on hand. Assemble the skirt by sewing the side seams together and then divide into quarters to prepare for attaching the skirt. 

Before serging the bodice and skirt together, I wanted to clean up the edge where I had cut off the previous skirt. I still used my serger since this bodice was lined and I wanted those two layers together. I think this really helps to keep all the layers together when putting the bodice and skirt together. I try to do this anytime there are three layers.

Now all we need to do is clip the bodice to the skirt and serge all the way around the opening. Now we have a dress. I wanted to use up a little bit more fabric from the previous dress so I used the old skirt portion to cut a sash. I didn’t worry about stripe matching here. I cut a strip the entire length of the previous skirt by about 4 inches.  I used my serger to stitch it right sides together and then stitched one end closed. Next I used my favorite tube turner to quickly turn this tube. Then I tucked in the loose ends of my tube and top stitched it closed. Here is my final product!

If you love my refashion, I would love if you used my affiliate links to pick up these patterns. Here they are for ya! 

Sunny Day 

Be Breezy

Remember that we still have an entire Sunny Day Skirt left over?? Don’t worry, I have already stitched it up to make a new EAM item and you are going to love it! Keep your eye right here to see what I have in store for you! Thanks for reading my blog post, please feel free to leave me a comment and let me know what you think! :)

SequoiaLynn