Hacked Hacci Dress

I made Christmas dresses for my girls and they absolutely love them. Score! The pattern did not include good fabric requirements which I found a tad annoying. Or enraging. Same thing. I found a pretty hacci fabric on Girl Charlee and I was very lucky to find it on a black Friday sale for only $3 a yard, so I was okay with WAY overbuying. I kind of guessed that I'd need 3 yards on average but decided to round up to 4, and also to plan to make one for me. So I bought TWENTY yards. Yeah. Loads of fabric. But the dresses had circle ruffles, which took a lot of fabric, and, to be fair, this means four dress for $60, which is a huge steal anyway. 

As it turns out, I way overestimated on fabric even at 3 yards, so I have SO MUCH leftover. Making myself a dress didn't happen at Christmas because I had so much to do anyway, but I figured I'd get to it eventually.

It jumped up the list when my girls kept asking me to make one for myself so we could all match. I figured, if they want to match, I should make it happen sooner rather than later, especially since they'll eventually outgrow their dresses. 

But...the pattern wasn't available in women's sizing. So, I had to hack it. I used a t-shirt pattern for the bodice, but, like the original pattern, opted to line it instead of binding the neck, so I just cut two. The pattern used straight rectangles for the skirt and gathered them at the waist, so that was simple, and instead of using circle pieces for the flounces on the sleeves and bottom, I just gathered longer rectangles. I made the sleeves twice because I hadn't used long enough pieces to give it a good gather. 

But, since I hacked it, it definitely had tricky parts and it's not perfect. The pockets are WAY too low. I also had to sew the waist band three times. I just kinda guessed how long to make the bodice, and it was way too long. Plus, the fabric is heavy, so it stretches it longer than I expected. And, the t-shirt fits great as a t-shirt but I really needed it a bit more fitted. I didn't want to take it in, but after the second waist, I knew I had to. So I opened it up and took it in on both the front and the lining. That went better than I expected, I think. The third time I sewed it, it still wasn't perfect, but it's definitely wearable. I think it would really benefit from an elastic in the waist band, but it wouldn't be nearly as comfy like that. 

So, here's my hacked dress. Taking it apart and putting it together multiple times was not my favorite, but I'm kinda proud that I could wing a dress like this.