It's cool, I'm only wearing this ironically: flowery refashions.

"Would you be caught dead in this outfit?" I asked my inner self. My inner self is the me that I've been for most of my teen years and adult life. Inner self likes black.
Also, I half-heartedly declared  May "skirt month" so I assure you, on this 5/31, you will see a skirt.

 Ha ha. Look at this ugly-ass dress. It's all flowery and stupid.

Look, people; I'm not putting on makeup and fancying up to take "before" pics. Sometimes I edit my head off. What is with that dress? It's got that thick waistline that doesn't seem to be at the waistline. Is this dress supposed to be a drop waist (those suck, btw) or was I supposed to pull it up and have a huge ass top?
Sometimes I don't know what draws me to an item so unlike the stuff that I normally like to wear. Perhaps my love of vintage clothing led me to appreciate the bold retro print. Maybe; because the weather is warming up, I feel the need to "dress the part" and do brightly colored florals.
I feel like this dress is somewhat of a costume for me. If I'm gonna wear summer stuff, I'm gonna go big; you'll goddamn know it's summer when you see me coming.
It was at the Goodwill for $2.50 and I thought it could make a nice summer "costume." The selling point? That waist. It's got a ton of shirring at the waist. I like that. OK, off to the cutting board.

The first thing I did was take a lot off the top. For some reason, I folded over the raw edge before taking the picture. Kinda like that teal Grecian disco dress, this one had a bodice that would not quit. I knew what I wanted to do. (I'll find a picture to show what I was going for, later) I wanted this to look like a 50s party dress. The top was going to be like a pouffy tube top held up with elastic and spaghetti straps.

That is too pouffy. I would have to take it in a little. Ugh... another step. I figured it would work best with two darts in the back.

I took it in in two places, like so. On the right, you see how much I took in. On the left, look! I got shears! Can you see? That's gonna make things easier. I just cut off that excess material, I'm sure it will work fine. Now, the top is still loose fitting, just not huge.
I folded down the raw edges of the top, about 2 inches. No damned idea why, but I used a turquoise colored thread and a zig zag stitch. Then, I sewed a not so straight line because I've got no skillz.

Looks ok, right?

Do you see the stitching? Are you sure?  I left a one inch section unstitched so I can add the elastic. I did the old safety pin thing and pushed it through.

Yeah, there's both sides of the elastic meeting up. I guess I felt that needed to be included. I put the dress on and pulled the ends of the elastic to fit properly and pinned them. Then I sewed the ends together. Duh.

In case you were wondering, this is how I made straps! I cut strips from the leftover material I took off the top. Then, I did a quick fold over and sewed it down. Riveting, I know. Here it is.

Ta da. I'll spare you a tone of "after" pics, because unfortunately, they didn't come out all that great. Also, I decided that shirred waist needs to be tighter. I wasn't staying where I wanted it. Another seam or two, and I'll be good.

It's not like I'm trying to look like a villain in these pictures...I'm just evil? Probably? I lied about sparing you on pics.

Add filter; fix self

Another adequate refashion!