WEBVTT

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There is a box, in the corner of my sewing
room.

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It is a box whose contents have not seen the
light of day for many a month.

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Many crafters will be familiar with this box,
in all of its forms: There’s the ever-growing

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amorphous lump
that lies underneath your desk…

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The monster underneath your bed…

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The stuff you vacuum-packed in a fit of organization
and stuffed into your garage in the hopes

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that you’d never have to deal with it again…

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This, my friends, is the UNFINISHED SEWING
PILE.

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So the item that I pulled out of the Style
Pile box today was…

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Lol, joke, this second pile over here is the
REST of the Style Pile, an extension of the

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box that’s flowed out into the corner of
my studio.

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Anyway, the item that I pulled out of the
depths of this mess is… this dress!

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This dress is originally from a store called
Mod Dolly from about 2012, HOWEVER I don’t

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really wear short dresses right now, they’re
a little bit too cutesy for me – so, I thought

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that I would turn this dress into a ROMPER!

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By the way, thank you to all of the people
who suggested that I do this DIY!

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And just so you all know I have an older video
on doing exact the opposite, which is turning

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a jumpsuit into a dress.

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ANYWAY back to the project at hand, you need
to cut your dress to the length that you want

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your romper to be FIRST.

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My dress didn’t need any cutting because
it’s already short enough and I wanted the

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romper to be about this length, but if you
have a longer dress and you want to make it

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in a shorter romper, then cut it to the desired
length with a pair of scissors FIRST.

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Next I turned my dress inside out and I laid
it down flat so that the front of the dress

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was facing up.

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Then I folded the dress in half, down the
middle of the front, like this, making sure

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that that side seams of the dress matched
up here, and that THIS fold was EXACTLY at

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the centre front of the dress.

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Next, I put pins into the centre-front fold
to make sure all 4 layers of fabric - the

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front and the back of the dress - were going
to stay in the same place.

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Then, I drew a little curved line like this
onto the inside of the fabric, that was about

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1 and a half inches high and ¾ of an inch
wide,

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and then I cut on this line through all 4 layers of fabric.

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Then I unfolded the dress and I ended up with
this.

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The next thing I did was to simply sew along
this new “crotch” part like this.

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I used a straight stitch and I sewed along
the seam twice for extra reinforcement around

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the crotch.

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I finished off the seam by clipping the raw
edge with a pair of pinking shears to prevent

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fraying, you could also serge this seam to
finish it off neatly OR you can just leave

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it as it is.

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Now, this is the basic romper DONE but you’ll
notice that if you leave it here, and depending

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on the fabric and width of your original skirt,
you’ll probably get a lot of “bunching”

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at the crotch area… which doesn’t look
so good.

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SO, to get rid of that, I folded my new romper
back into this position.

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Then, I grabbed a pair of slightly loose-fitting
shorts that I already owned, and I folded

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them in half the same way I did for the dress,
so that they looked like this.

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I then placed the shorts on top of the romper,
matching up the crotch seams.

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You can see that the front panel of the pair
of shorts goes inwards like this, which reduces

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the “crotchal-bulk” (that’s not a term)
– anyway I traced this shape onto my own

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romper using a fabric pen. The pen is kinda
hard to see on the video but the line is HERE.

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Next, I pulled the back of the romper away
from the front – because I only want to

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sew through 2 layers of fabric here, through
the FRONT of the romper only.

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And then, I sewed straight up this line using
a straight stitch.

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To finish this seam off, and get rid of that
extra fabric at the crotch, I cut away the

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excess fabric from the seam using some pinking
shears so that the fabric wouldn’t fray.

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Now, you’ll also notice that when I placed
the shorts onto the romper, the bottoms of

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the shorts curved upwards away from the crotch
like this.

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So if you don’t do this next step, your
romper’s shorts will curve down from the

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crotch like this.

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What I want to do is make the legholes more
“straight” across my legs. So to do this,

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I traced around the bottom of the pair of
shorts, adding about 1 inch hemming allowance,

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and then I cut along this line through ALL
4 layers of fabric – so through both the

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front and the back of the romper.

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I unfolded this and then I serged around the
bottom of both leg holes – this step is

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optional, it just stops fraying, you can also
cut it with pinking shears – and then, with

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the romper still inside-out, I made a hem
around the leg holes by folding the fabric

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up, about a half an inch, like this, and sewing
all the way around the leg.

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AND….

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This is my finished romper!

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[Music plays]

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It worked out so well and it looks fantastic
– I love it!

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Here are the before and the afters!

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NOW, before I go, it’s worth mentioning
that you can only use this method on a dress

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that you can pull up over your hips and waist
– so on a dress that has a zipper or buttons

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or a tie-up front like mine.

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But next episode, I’ll be showing you how
you can use this method on a dress that you

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pull on over your head, so... a dress without
zippers [or other ways to get it on].

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I hope you guys are having a great week, thanks
for watching, and I’ll see you all next

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time. Bye!

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Thank to all of my supporters on Patreon for
making these videos possible! To become my

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Patreon supporter, go to patreon.com/annikavictoria.