Upcycled bubble dress

When I (again) started to actively blog last fall, I sewed along with Project Run and Play. I loved to see all the different interpretations of one theme. This year Project Run and Play will have a different set up. Now, every month there will be a sew along and you will have three weeks to make your creation. As I understand it, every month there will be a tutorial and you can link up anything that you made inspired by the tutorial. I think it is a great concept, because it will probably mean that I will be challenged to use new techniques, or known techniques in different ways.

This months tutorial was a bubble dress tutorial. I had never made anything bubbly, so I was game to try it. Alida provided a nice Pinterest inspiration board as well. But before I was going to try making a bubble dress, I first wanted to try the technique, so I made a skirt. I took half a meter Michael Miller fairies from my stash and turned it into a very bubbly skirt for my middle daughter. The model showing the skirt here is actually my eldest (the photo was taken with my phone so I am sorry for the lesser quality). I wanted a full skirt for my twirly middle girl and took the whole 110 cm wide fabric, Normally this would lead to a nice full gathered skirt, but the bubble effect made it a bit too much for my middle daughter's height, but she will grow into it. I chose a very thin (polyester) lining and this gave a very nice gathering effect at the bottom. One of the nice thing about the bubble technique is that you do not have to hem, yeh!

Then I had to choose the fabric for the "real" dress. I now knew that the bubble technique gives a full skirt effect and I decided to take a maxi skirt that I had on my upcycle pile (this time I did make a "before" picture).

 The skirt is silvery/gray and has many embroidered details on it. I started by taking the waistband off and I used the upper part of the original skirt for the skirt part of the dress. The bottom width was about three times the waist. The lower part of the original skirt had different triangles with embroidered details and I used the flower triangles for the sleeves and placed one of the bigger details on the middle of the front. For the back I opted for embroidered details on the sides. The pattern of the bodice and sleeves are the same as for this dress and originate from Stof Voor Doe het Zelvers 2.

I lined the bodice with interlock. The fabric of the original skirt is wrinkled thin cotton which makes the dress stretchy, but due to the fabric's light weightiness I was afraid that the dress would become to baggy if there was nothing to hold the wrinkles together. The dark blue lining shows at the neckline which I think is a neat detail. Due to the interlock lining I also did not have to use a zipper (double yeh!). I again opted for the thin polyester lining as I did with the trail skirt. It is a very nice purple and my colorful daughter loved the fact that the colors of the two linings were not the same. I did not line the sleeves

After some serious pictures she of course also had to twirl, jump and bow like a princess.

 

Although Kid's Clothes Week has not started yet (almost though), I decided to also put it among my projects for this season due to the "upcycle" theme. I had planned on using the original skirt in that week, but I still have a nice pile to be upcyled (and I might even make something from the skirts's leftovers.

I love to hear what you think of them. Feel free to leave a comment in the language you prefer (although Google translate might have to assist me if you choose something different than English, German, Dutch or Hungarian).