Skirt to Drape Vest

I love this skirt but it has been a long time since it fit anyone. The material is almost a chiffon with a sheer liner beautiful material but a pain in the caboose to work with. My first thought was some kind of top but the skirt was like a large and I am more a 4x kind of woman so I decided to take it apart first and see if inspiration fit.

I took off the top including the darts then opened up both the liner and the skirt at the slit on the side. I decided to use the pinking shears to reduce the fraying of the edges as I worked. I had recently done a vest from an idea on Pinterest which I will post later. Decided that this would work. First thing was to take the solid slip material folded it and cut in two pieces length wise. Then sewed each piece to one side of the patterned material.

I folded the material in half the skirt part would be the back and sides as you can see. I found a tank top pattern. If you look closely you can see that the back part of the pattern is up against the fold. Once it is pinned then pin the front making sure that the sides line up   properly. Now cut out by following the neck, up around the shoulder, down and around the armhole back up to the front shoulder and along the front neck. Remember you are NOT cutting the sides just the armhole.

Okay here I ran into a problem that I fixed pretty easily and you might too. As you can see you will have a lot of material extended past the edge of the patter this will be your drape. the problem I had was the front neckline.

You can see that I figured that I would just cut straight to as if the neckline just extended out in a straight line. WRONG!!. The Drape would not work. Luckily the skirt was long enough that I laid it out again and this time. I bypassed the front neck and cut straight across from the top front shoulder. The reason for the curve is that the skirt had a curve but I was not worried since it really would not be noticed.

The drape worked well. I left it that long because I wanted my sister to be able to wear it as well and she is taller then me with a larger bust.

 

I think it came out pretty well. You can let it hang as a narrow drape or as I did and spread it pack a little. Not bad considering I did it one night so that I would have something to dress up a plain black dress.