How to Turn a Skirt into a Sundress - Part Two

At last! Part two appears! I actually finished the dress quite awhile ago, but with movie editing I simply didn't have time to write this post up.

However it is now the inaugeral sewing journal entry for "Confessions of a Seamstress"

Forgotten part one? Refresh your memory here: http://elenatintil.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-turn-skirt-into-sundress-part.html

When we last left off, I had just finished the skirt. I then started pulling the pieces I had left together and figuring out what was going to go where. Kind of like a puzzle... (this is why geometry was my strongest math subject in high school)
I didn't have enough of the lining to do this in one continuous strip, but the principle of this bodice was that I wrapped a rectangle around my torso and then pinned the darts accordingly. It's not a perfect method and needs some tweaking, but I think it can work well enough with practice.
After pinning the darts, I cut them open (leaving seam allowances) so that I could easily replicate the pieces.
I then doubled the cut side over and copied the lines on the other side of the rectangle...
And then cut and assembled the blue fabric as well. Voila!
I wanted to do straps, but I wanted them to have more structure than just long square strips. So I took a piece of woven trim that had originally been at the bottom of the skirt, separated it from the excess fabric and...
...used it to trim the center edges of the straps!
Next I started work on the belt. I wanted it to be fairly stiff, so I added stabilizer.
The finished belt.
The bodice was still a bit loose around the waist, so I took in some more darts.

And added a zipper of course!

I have to tweak the straps a bit and then I hope to have a proper photo shoot before summer quite vanishes...