The Red Romper

Hello Readers. I really like red. I think it is bright and cheerful. (Two things I want to be.) I saw this red knit "dress" at a clothes swap and thought it was a basic mini-dress. Or maybe a tunic. I took it home (Washed it.) and it hung on my clothes rack for a few months. I finally got to it and planned on finding a way to make sure it was long enough to wear as a dress. But I got a surprise.

It was soft but felt really bulky and heavy at the bottom. I realized there was more to this dress than I first thought. It was a skort-dress. I have never seen a skort dress before. I have seen skorts. (You know, a skirt with attached shorts under it.) 

I didn't like the double layer around my hips. It added size and shapelessness. Something had to be done.

All this fabric is like butt insulation. Not good for summer.

I do not own a romper so I decided to make one. I was just flying by the seat of my pants (Er, romper.) as I played with the fabric on this refashion. I decided to remove the skirt. There was a seam around the middle where the skirt was attached so I just used it as a guide to cut the skirt off. It is a knit so there was no fraying. That was easy but it was very loose and shapeless and needed more help.

I attached elastic inside at the waist. I used the seam as my guide and machine sewed the elastic to the romper. I wanted some shape and elastic seemed like the way to go.

This is the skirt piece. I decided to cut off the finished bottom edge to use as a belt.

Here is a photo of that cutting process. It wasn't really a process. It was just snip-snip-snip.

The belt seemed like a nice touch but isn't required since I had put in the elastic around the waist. And really, once I had the belt ready, I could have skipped the elastic.

  But the belt is handy to have. Actually you will see it again in my next post.

Thanks for reading, now go make something fun for yourself.