Refashionista: Black long evening gown

Refashionista is finally back! It's been too long since my last refashionista post. Not that I haven't made anything, but it's taken me awhile to get things photographed, and I've also been sewing from scratch more these days (those posts are coming as well).

Now, on to this beauty I made several months ago, actually. One of my goals for this school year was to add to my performance wear. I desperately needed a simple, yet dressy concert gown. I made myself a gorgeous, but super fancy concert gown last spring, but I needed something more subtle. What would be better than a classic and elegant long black evening gown.

For this dress I used two old garments from my refashion pile (pictured above). The first a simple black velvet dress that was a couple of sizes too big and an odd length. The second my Mom's old lace blouse she wasn't wearing anymore. The best thing about these two garments was that they were both stretchy, which meant no zippers and an ultra comfy dress. It's like performing in your pj's!

The velvet dress was exactly wide enough to become the skirt part of the new dress. I cut the upper part of the velvet dress off, just below the armholes and attached it to the underlining of the lace blouse.

Then I used the pattern on the lace to cut out a new uneven hem for the blouse. I attached the blouse hem to the velvet skirt with pins and sewed it on by hand adding small seed beads along the way as embellishment. I did the same cut out hem with the sleeves of the dress. I think it gives it so much more sophistication, although it's a very simple modification.

This could be the easiest evening gown ever made. It turned out exactly as I hoped and I've been getting a lot of wear out of it already. A very successful make in my book!