No-Sew Bustle, Turn Long Skirts/dresses into Short ones!

        Awhile ago my friend Gio showed me a really easy way to add a little flair to plain boring long skirts. All it takes is some safety pins and about 5-10 minutes!
        I have this cute purple dress that I never wear because something about it just didn't look right to me. It didn't fall right around the hip area and was pretty unflattering.

        It is really helpful if you have a dress figure to put it on first or at least someone helping you so that you can get the gathered parts even.
        First, go down to the side seam of the dress about 12 inches or so from the bottom.

       Pinch the fabric at each side of the seam at about an inch or so away from the seam. Bring the two parts you are pinching together to the middle and keep that fabric pinched with one hand. Use your free hand to do the same thing on the other side. It should look something like this on both sides...

        Now, bring the pinched sides up to where you want the bustle to end. I brought it up to where my the top and skirt of my dress meet. If you are doing this to a skirt you can bring it all the way up to the top or wherever you think looks best.

       Use a safety pin to pin each side where you want it to end. You can re-pin the safety pins on the inside later so that they don't show but for now do it on the outside so you can make any needed adjustments easily. Once you pin the sides you will have to do some messing around and tucking to the front and back so that it has a nice even fold to it.

        At first the fabric will fall weird at the place where my hand is. Just tuck any extra fabric in the big pocket that was created in the middle. Like I mentioned before, just play around with the way it falls until it looks good. You can also try re-pinning it at different places to get different looks. This technique works best with loose fabrics and fuller skirts. It is an awesome and easy way to turn a long dress or skirt into a short one.

        Once it looks the way you like it and the fabric is falling nicely, you can re-pin your safety pins on the inside. You can do a really quick stitch if you want your dress or skirt to be this way permanently but I prefer the safety pins since I can just take them out if I decide I want it to be long again or if I want to do a different type of bustle.

        I love doing this to my long skirts and dresses, you can change pretty much any of the steps to make a whole new look. You can gather the fabric at a lower point in the dress, gather it closer or further apart, do more or less bustles (if you want to do a bunch make sure the skirt is really full), or have them meet at different places on the dress. It's all about experimenting and seeing what looks good with the fabric.