- Have you ever gotten something
gift wrapped from Amazon? You know, it's your birthday
or some sort of holiday, and you get this cute
little bag like this. Normally I will just hold on to these and use them to wrap gifts
that I'm giving in the future but this year I received this, which is very exciting,
thank you, parents, but I don't know the
next time I'm gonna need to give a gift quite this large. Although, I have an idea, and I just lost power. (gentle music) All right, so I think
that my strategy here is going to be to try
and retain the drawstring of the bag as the waist, since it just feels like
that's where the waistband of this dress should go. And then I think I am going to try and leave as much length as possible. I've really been digging the you know, floor-length dresses lately. So we'll do what we can there. And then that leaves me with
a little bit of material that I can use to cover the bust. I have kinda a couple of
different thoughts there but let's just start
draping the skirt, mm, see where we go. I will need to go ahead and
seam rip open that bottom of the bag first, 'cause that's gonna make
this whole thing one big tube that I can put on my dress form. After fiddling about with
these ruffles for a bit, I did eventually decide that I wanted to take
back the spacing material that's inside the top of the ruffle. So I just simply seam ripped it apart. Starting out on my form, for
some reason, like it worked, it just wasn't necessarily
the most ergonomic. So I did go ahead and remove this ribbon around the drawstring waistband area and set that aside for use later. And then finished up my seam ripping with it off of the form. This is way way faster. I then went ahead and added
some pins to the center front and the center back, although I didn't bother
doing any on the sides since they already had seams from when it was sewn up as a bag. I then tried to connect each
of these respective spots with where they belonged
on the dress form, so the sides, the center
back, the center front, so on. So next what I'm gonna try and do is pleat this evenly about the waist. I think in my head, I like the idea of lots
of very fine pleats. So, I'm going to see what I can do. Turns out I guess, it wasn't
actually all that necessary to sub-divide out the center
front, and side and so on, since I just ended up turning
the whole thing inside out and then repleating it. But hopefully, this at
least gives you an idea of how I went about
dividing up my fabric evenly so that I can then fit it onto the form. (gentle music) I'm not sure that I'm in love with this. I don't know if I don't like the way the pleats radiate outward and you know, go all the way back. The final version probably
won't be this tall, it probably be like,
maybe about here or so. And with like straps. I'm not sure if I'm feeling this. I'm gonna sleep on it, see what I think in the morning. All right, so I slept on it and I think that I do like it okay, you can see that I added some straps and like a waistband, to kinda imagine what it
looks like in the end. I lowered the neckline a little bit and I'm liking it more. So that's a good sign. I do still think though
that I don't like the way that the pleats go outwards
towards the back of the body, I think I'd rather them
go in towards the middle which is the same way
I have it on the back. See how the pleats go in
towards the middle of the body. I think I like this look better. So I'm going to rearrange the front pleats so that they match the back. (gentle music) So I kinda hated it. So I'm completely redoing it. But you know, that's part
of the creative process, it's fine. So I took it off,
I took all the pins out, it's now a big rectangle again. So I'm gonna go ahead and
put the thing back on here and attempt to make some
really big box pleats, that will end at the waist and so you'll get to see
the pleat at the waist and that'll be lovely. Each of the lines here are
going to be where the seams go. Let's see if that works any better. (gentle music) So I'm relatively happy
with where we're at now, I think I'm gonna like this better. So each of these little flaps
is going to become a box pleat so it's gonna get flattened down. But first I'm going to stitch
each of these pinned seams until I get to the waistband and then, I guess I'm gonna see whether or not this stuff will
iron safely, at all. That'll be exciting. (gentle music) (gentle music continues) As it turns out, yes, it irons just fine as long as you make sure
to keep the heat very low. So I did cut away any of the excess seam
allowance in the bodice and then left it full in the skirt so that I could then use
that fullness in the pleat to form a set of little
box pleats, like so. Now I need to figure out some
sort of like, top solution. I think this is a little bit higher then I would like it to be so I'm gonna kind of look at this and decide what I want it to look like. I'm gonna add some shoulder straps, and I think I might add
some little like waist loops to go with the waist tie, I'm not sure yet. This is
what a lot of sewing is, it's just like, pondering
it as you're making. Hm. I procrastinated on making
the decision for a bit by sewing in a zipper in red, 'cause that's what I had, and then I did eventually decide to make sort of a like a V-neck, very slight V-neck on the front and back. So I folded down the excess fabric until I kinda liked the look of it and then I also went ahead
and clipped my seam allowances on the underarm arm side type area and then top-stitched
that whole thing down. I also gave the bottom of the
dress a little bit of love by folding it up, making a very deep hem, and then top stitching it in place to keep everything nice and neat. The belt also got an
additional piece of trim, top-stitched on the underside
to keep it from collapsing. So, while I prepare, (iron whooshes) this for its final reveal ironing, which I always recommend by the way. If you're gonna put so
much effort into a project, you should go-ahead and iron it one last time
before you try it on, so that like, it looks
as absolutely fantastic as you can possibly have
it look for that like, first, reveal on your bod, recommend. But while I get this ironed for you guys, for that final reveal, let me tell you a little about the sponsor of today's video, Acorn TV. So I've talked about
them several times before and they have lots of really great dramas but lately, I've been kinda craving just a little bit more reality, not like news, let's not go overboard. But you know, some fun, like
documentaries-style realness. Things like, "A Stitch in
Time", which by the way, if you haven't seen yet, you need to stop this video
and go watch that now. Also things like "Victorian
Farm", which is just great. I think it's a really fantastic example of what reality TV should be. No ridiculous overblown drama, it's just the fun of a challenge, of trying to live on a Victorian old farm, and you know, exploring
the various aspects of day-to-day life back then. You can get these shows
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days by going to acorn.tv and use code, Morgan. All right, let's give this dress a try. (gentle music) (upbeat music) (laughs) Guys, I am so
very pleasantly surprised at how well this turned out. Now I'm under no illusions, this isn't exactly going to be clothing that will stand up to the ages, this fabric is really
not meant to be worn. So I'm sure that for long-term use it probably wouldn't stand up well. But, for a few fun parties, and honestly, if you get one of these like giant bags this year, use it to practice making
mock-ups for something that has a like a lot of
body and structure to it, because it just stands-up so much that it's excellent for that. Oh, and I would also recommend that, maybe if you don't want to
make mock-ups out of it, it would be a really nice pattern paper, so if you've ever used like
the Swedish tracing paper or something, it's not white and therefore you can't trace with it but it does have that same sort
of non-woven fusible fabric, which is nice, 'cause you could really
easily pin it to your stuff or stitch up your pattern really quick and verify that it looks kind of right. So again, basically making
a mock-up, but whatever. You get what I mean, right? This would actually
make a really nice like, pattern paper to use to
keep your patterns on because it's not stretching, it's not going anywhere,
it's really stable, the edges don't fray. Like if we're gonna try
and reuse and recycle, this has some potential in it. I'm really happy that I decided to use the drawstring ribbons
to make the waistband-belt, and a little shoulder straps. I think it's so stinking cute, ah. I know if I should think
my own stuff is super cute but I don't care, I'm into this. I did reinforce the belt because you know, it's just kind of a flimsy, polyester belt so I add in some extra
stitching underneath here to help give it something
a little bit more structure on the main part of the belt. And I kinda wish I'd done the
same thing for the straps, at least like, from here to here, or so. So that the part where it's
stitched to the bodice top would have a little bit more reinforcement because this ribbon is
definitely not meant to take the kind of strain
that it's currently under, to hold up. And it's not like, the dress is heavy, it's actually really really light, but that probably would have been good because the threads on the ribbon are starting to separate. I don't know why like, I'm
thinking about these things 'cause I'm not gonna make
another one of these. But it is good to look at your materials and see what if you want
to use similar materials in the future, you might have to do to
make them work best for you. I do kinda wish that the bottom had just a teensy bit more width, which I suppose that you
could add some gauze in it, but part of the fun of this
was starting with a tube and (laughs) making it,
you know, fit my bodice. Mission accomplished. Yeah, guys, I had a lot of fun, and thank you again to Acorn TV for sponsoring my continuous shenanigans. And thank you guys for watching, I hope you have a fantastic
start to your 2021. (gentle music)
