Dress To Romper DIY | The Style Pile #12

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

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

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

amorphous lump
that lies underneath your desk…

The monster underneath your bed…

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

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

This, my friends, is the UNFINISHED SEWING
PILE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

that I would turn this dress into a ROMPER!

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

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

a jumpsuit into a dress.

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

your romper to be FIRST.

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

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

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

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

was facing up.

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

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

the centre front of the dress.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the crotch.

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

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

it as it is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

the shorts curved upwards away from the crotch
like this.

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

crotch like this.

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

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

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

front and the back of the romper.

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

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

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

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

AND….

This is my finished romper!

[Music plays]

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

Here are the before and the afters!

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

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

or a tie-up front like mine.

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

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

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

time. Bye!

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

Patreon supporter, go to patreon.com/annikavictoria.