DIY Corset Back Romper | The Style Pile #13

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.

Welcome back!

Today’s video is a sequel, of sorts, to
my previous video where I turned this dress

here into a romper!

Now, the method that I showed you in episode
12 works well for any dress that has a zipper,

buttons, ties-up at the front or has some
other method that allows you to pull the dress

up over your hips and waist, however, what
about dresses that you pull on over your head?

The dress that I pulled out of the style pile(s)
for this video was THIS dress here.

Notice how it doesn’t have a zipper up the
back?

YEAH.

The reason why that’s important will be
obvious very soon.

So, excited as I was by my previous "romper-fication",
I also started turning this dress into a romper,

in the exact same way that I did in episode
#12.

But then I hit a pretty obvious snag when
I got up to the stage where I... had to put

the romper on my body.

Because there was now a couple of leg holes
in the way.

Whoops.

SO, I decided that I would open up the back
of the dress, to allow me to get it on, and

to make it pretty, I’d also turn this opening
into a lace-up, corset back.

So next, I placed the romper front-side down
like this and I sliced straight down the centre

back, using some scissors, ending at my lower
back.

Then I folded each raw edge in about half
an inch, tapering the fold at the bottom of

the slit, and then I sewed a straight stitch
down each of these raw edges, effectively

“hemming” the sides, like this.

Next, I turned the romper inside-out, and
with a fabric marker I drew small dots on

evenly up either side of the slit.

Now, I shouldn’t have made marks all the
way up to the TOP of the romper, I should

have only done them up to here… we’ll
see why in just a bit.

Anyway, for each of the dots that I had marked
out, I poked a small hole through each one,

and then I inserted an eyelet through that
hole, smooth-side on the right-side of the

fabric, rough side of the eyelet on the wrong
side of the fabric.

Once all the eyelets were inserted, it looked
like this!

And again, I shouldn’t have added these
top few and, I promise, you’ll soon see

why.

Anyway, I then started lacing up the eyelets
using a piece of ribbon, lacing them up how

you would lace up a pair of shoes.

Annnnnd…

I slowly came to the realisation that once
the romper was laced up all the way, I would

still have my original problem of not being
able to get it on – not unless I had help

from somebody else who was always going to
lace me up into the romper each time I wanted

to wear it - which would present a little
bit of a problem everytime I wanted to take

the romper off to use the bathroom.

Yeah.

So I had to re-think this whole lace-up corset
situation.

Sooooo while I was lacing it up, when I got
up to about the 5th or the 6th eyelet pair

from the top, I kept trying the romper on
my body to see if I could still pull it on.

When I got to the 4th eyelet pair from the
top, I realised that this was the furthest

that I could lace it up and still put it on.

So, I then gave the romper an open v-back
by folding the top edges of the romper in,

underneath the inside of the romper’s back,
like this, and then stitching over the top.

You can see that I've pinned the on the right-hand
side already.

Now, because I’d already inserted eyelets,
I had to hand-stitch this so that I wouldn’t

run over the eyelets with my sewing machine,
which is why I wish that I hadn't inserted

eyelets all the way up to the top!

If the eyelets weren't in here, I'd be able
to go over it with my sewing machine.

Anyway, we learn from our mistakes, and in
the end I still had this super cute romper

with a lace-up corset back, that I think is
much more interesting than the original dress

that I upcycled it from!

I hope that you enjoyed these two episodes
on turning dresses into rompers - if you haven't

seen the first one already, then make sure
you watch it and as always if you try this

OR any of my other tutorials then please tag
them with #diyannika on Instagram, because

I love seeing what you guys come up with!

Thank you so much for watching, and I’ll
see you all next time.

Bye!

Thank you to all of my supporters on Patreon
for making these videos possible.

To become my patreon supporter, go to patreon.com/annikavictoria!