The Oblong .. can also become this dress.. or something like this

The Hacked Oblong                                                                The Original Oblong

Thank you to my friend Gabriele  @kissntuss for a delicious challenge.

She had, as we have ALL have had at times , enough of a particular  project.

This dress had ended up far too big for her. It happens.

She offered the  dress and about a metre of fabric to anyone who could do something with it.  She probably thought ( and hoped ) she was seeing it for the last time when she dropped it off last Summer..Except; when she helped me out at the beginning of the Oblong Project by styling and modelling the denim prototype; my lizard brain had connected the Oblong and @Kissntuss. When this following stubborn idea jumped into my head I called her, and she  gracefully stepped up into her role as Muse.

The Denim Oblong.                   The starting point + about 1m of extra fabric

 The idea.

There have been a number of spectacular upcycled projects turning up in my instagram feed lately . I was starting to feel a bit jealous, because  I wanted to PLAY!!

Fortunately, this little frock went together quite quickly. The original Oblong is deliberately unadorned so it is extremely hackable.

 This idea was to replace the lower side front and the lower back with a long gathered rectangle with a beautiful border embroidery.

Firstly, I made the front and back pattern pieces the same length at the side seams because the original Oblong is longer at the back.

Then the single front piece was divided into 2 and seam allowance was added.

To avoid a tricky corner, I added a 2cm waist dart.This part of the pattern is loose so 2cm wasn´t missed.

The construction worked well, however I made a rookie mistake! I should have made sure that there was a right angle at the base of the dart.

 Alway make sure there is a straight line! that the angle of the pieces you are joining is equal to 180 degrees- A STRAIGHT LINE.

This would have avoided the seam slightly going upwards as it meets the centre front piece.

Oh well, with all of my excitement I made a mistake so you don´t have to!

 Here are some photos of the construction.

I pieced about 120cm from the hem of the inspiration dress with 80cm of left over border embroidery( I divided it  40cm + 120cm +40cm).

So 2 metres was gathered into about 60cm.

This a bit more than 3 :1... this is very generously gathered. So it is excellently twirly for a straight gather.

Here excellently demonstrated by the Stokx head twirler.

 and the sleeves.

 I used the free tool to make a placket and  shortened the sleeve so I could add a cuff.

The difference between the width at the base of the sleeve and the cuff disappeared into pleats.

And the Pockets.

There was still a bit of border embroidery that was too short to be used for the skirt so here are  generous extremely fancy patch pockets.

And the back neck.

Here the back neck facing has been replaced with a bias band. It is less bulky for this medium shirt weight fabric.

This was fun!  I hope you find this hack inspiring

 We can talk about his hack at the Oblong Sewalong

Thank you again Gabriele!!