I promised myself I would finish all the dress refashion projects (that I started and abandoned) now that I have a sewing machine. I may have gotten spooked because I don't know how to attach the needle, which looks kinda small anyway. I need an adult.
Still, I finished up this New Year's party dress (which I didn't wear because it's so cold). This is what I started with:
I got it at Goodwill, and asked them for a deal, due to obvious need for repair. ($2.00!) The shape and style of it were retro-tastic, but the material was kinda cheesy. As you can see, it looks like it's previous owner tried to grate it. I started by taking off that nasty bow and the broken buttons.
It's a shame because I love bows, but that thing was like all ripped and faded. Look, the seam has some sort of lining. The one thing in good shape would have to get cut off. I liked the idea of having buttons, so I needed to replace those. Finally, a chance to get into my big-ass button collection.
Ooh, perfect! Those old-timey buttons look like they came off some fancy lady's jacket in the 50s or something. They're like a brushed gold, if you can't tell. But, oh no! I only have three of them, and I removed four; one on top, one on bottom, and one on each sleeve. I guess the bottom of the dress will go decorative button-less
Because of the dress's horizontal stripes, I figured I'd skip a valuable step of measuring and marking how much of the bottom I wanted to cut off. That's how I roll; measure nothing, cut as many times as needed. I just eyeballed it, and used one of the gold thread stripes as a guide. Holy shit, it actually worked. I pinned it up and moved on to the hard part.
The hole in the dress was going to be a bitch to deal with. I thought about attaching a ribbon around the dress like a stripe, but I didn't have enough of it. So, I just snipped a little piece off the part that I just removed from the hem. I pinned the little scrap underneath the hole, so that it was like a patch, but from behind. I used my needle and thread to carefully hand stitch it in place.
I was pretty much done! Except the bottom that was still pinned, waiting to be sewn. As I ironed the hem down flat, I figured it would be easy enough to do a quick hand sew. The material is lightweight and kinda rough. I could probably get away with a just a few, quick stitches.
I finished in moments; another easy DIY, where the "after" is quite similar to the "before." Here's the result:
I'm always adding belts to draw attention to my favorite feature (my waist, in case that wasn't apparent). I thought that gold cincher might have been a bit much, but I'm doing it. It was part of my old wrestling wardrobe! It's reversible too, so I when I changed my "colors" from silver to gold, that piece was a carry over. Moar pics!
I should mention that I only put this dress on, so I can take pictures of it for the sake of blogging. I have no fancy events to attend any time soon. So...time well spent, right?
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