#RefashionFriday Tier Dress Refashion

I can’t believe it’s been so long since I’ve blogged. Actually, I can believe it- things have been a little hectic. Since my last blog post in August, I finished making my wedding dress, got married on the rim of the Grand Canyon and spent two weeks exploring National Parks with my new husband. Of course, there was a lot more that happened in the past few months, but those are some of the more notable moments!

I will definitely share my wedding dress/the process of making it when I get back some more photos! (But I will leave a few down below if you haven’t seen any on instagram)

While making my wedding dress, I had a lot of refashioning ideas, but didn’t have time to make any of them because my dress took way longer than expected. After my dress, and all the wedding planning, I didn’t feel like being creative at all! The past couple weeks I have been re-organizing life, sewing through a little bit of my stash (projects that have been on my list all year!) and designing new bags for my shop.

For a few months now I’ve been eyeing “tier dresses”, dresses with 2-3 gathered layers, and have been falling in love with the style. I was doing some pattern research and came across the Myosotis Dress and really fell in love! But before spending money on another pattern, I wanted to test how the dress style would look on me. Enter this sweet denim dress I picked up earlier in the year.

This denim dress was very well loved - the denim has been washed a number of times and it has several stains, but I really loved the bodice detail and the velvet collar. It was a size small, so I didn’t have to do much fitting to it, but I was able to use the skirt for the look I wanted. I went off this photo for inspiration.

First step was to re-size the bodice a bit on each side. I also removed the skirt from the bodice and took out the pleats in the original skirt. The first tier of the skirt came out to be 10.5" long. I gathered the skirt and reattached the first tier.

To make the second tier a little bit of a quicker process, I measured from the bottom up to keep the original hem. I had to add about 7” to both side seams of the second tier to add more material to gather. There are additional seam lines on the sides, but I don’t mind. The second tier measures in at 9".

I also re-sized the sleeve slightly and took out a few inches on the shoulder. After that, I re-attached the ties to the side seams and my refashion was complete!

I really love the style on me, I just have to be sure to watch the length. Going too long with this style dress can make me look frumpy, so a style right above the knee works well! I also need to watch the amount of gathering in each tier. I've had this issue before- adding too much gathering makes me look childish, so for me, it's all about moderation with gathering!

This refashion came together quickly and would be easy to do with so many dresses! I could also see this as a cute upcycle for kids!

Looking for a little more inspiration? Here are some awesome tier dresses:

Have a Seamwork Account? This Amber Dress is so cute - I love the multi colored layers, another option for upcycling!

This tutorial from peek-a-boo pages can be easily adapted for an upcycle project!

Sara from The Sara Project also created a tier dress tutorial with trim!

Happy Friday!

And here are some photos of our wedding and honeymoon! I will blog more about all of this soon!