Make and Mend for Victory: A Tutorial

This is a tutorial on how I managed to make "new" dresses from old ones that I no longer could wear but did not want to part with so soon. To start, you will need clothes you no longer can wear or else clothes that could stand a little freshening up. In my case, it was dresses I really wanted to save because I was attached to them but could no longer wear because they didn't fit. After a summer with intense physical activity, my bust and upper arms and back expanded but from the waist down, there was no change. That resulted in a lot of dresses I was no longer able to even get my arms through and dresses that I could not button up unless I wanted to be super squished (not a great look . . .  ). The result was that I took my dresses and put them into two piles: save pile and scrap pile. The scrap pile was for dresses that were going to be used for surplus fabric only to expand my dress bodices because that was the area that I needed to expand to make my clothes wearable again. 

The Purple Dress was the first one I decided to make and mend. The original was a light purple print and the surplus fabric was a solid purple from a dress that was a complete and total flop (it never got photographed so that tells you something right there). To expand the printed dress, I removed the skirt and the sleeves from the bodice. I saved the printed skirt because I liked that one and wanted to save it. The sleeves of the printed dress were too small on me, and I put them aside in a separate scrap pile. The bodice was next. I took off the upper collar and saved that putting it in the "save pile" with the skirt. The bodice sides were unstitched, and the buttons and side zipper removed and set aside. The shoulder seam was unstitched to. The purple printed dress also had trim and pockets which were removed. 

To expand the printed bodice. I started with the back because that was the easy half. I saved the upper portion cutting across the back starting about halfway down the armhole. The lower back portion was set aside. To re cut the bodice back, I took a large chunk of the solid purple and laid it down on the floor. On top of that I placed my lower bodice of printed fabric I had set aside, to use as a rough pattern, to get the arm hole shape. I added as much fabric as I could for my new bodice piece and that it obviously needed to be bigger than the old piece. Once I had a new lower bodice back cut out, I gathered and stitched it to the old upper bodice back. The back was done. 

The front was much harder because it had to be pieced together using the old, printed sleeves. To start, I took the bodice front with the upper collar already removed and cut away the center front. With the printed bodice sides still intact, I took my scraps and added to the bodice sides as much as I could to add width to the sides. Once I had used all the printed fabric I could, I took the old center front and used that as my rough pattern to re cut the center front and facing. I added some width to the bodice by cutting extra fabric along the side that would get sewn to the bodice side front. 

Next, to complete the front, I stitched the solid bodice center front to the printed bodice side front and then gathered the shoulder seam to fit onto the shoulder seam of the bodice upper back. I added a solid facing, the upper collar and that was that. I cut out a new sleeve in the solid purple, gathered the sleeve head and stitched into the arm hole that I did enlarge just a touch. I added new buttons to the bodice as well. When the bodice was done, it was sewn back to the skirt and the original side zipper re installed. 

Between the two make and mend dresses, this was by far the most complex one because there was not a lot of the solid purple left to use and the printed dress was in rough shape after so many years of wear. 

The second one, the pink one was the easier one to complete. For this one I really wanted to save all the scallops along the collar, front and sleeves. To make this one happen, I took the pink dress and the cream colored dress apart. I wanted to save as much of the pink as I could so the cream dress became my scrap fabric to expand the bodice of the pink dress. Once the pink dress was taken apart at all the seam but the shoulder seams, I laid the bodice flat and cut away the bodice sides starting about half way up the arm hole and then down the front sides. Using that portion I cut away as a "pattern" or template, I laid it down on the skirt of the cream dress because that was the biggest about of fabric I had to work with. I cut out an enlarged bodice side inset and then gathered the top of it to fit into the pink. The back bodice was done in the same way. I cut away the bodice back and added a cream portion to enlarge the bodice. Once I had the bodice done, I gathered it to fit into the skirt waist and stitched. I added a side zipper which I had saved and set aside and done. This refashion was the easier and faster one, taking about 2 hours to complete.