I will definitely sink

It's like the tattoo or maybe a picture shared on Facebook; the image of an old-timey anchor along with the words, "I refuse to sink."

Look, I know it's not supposed to be literal, but the picture and words just don't match for me! If you've got an anchor that refuses to sink, then you've got a crap anchor and soon you won't have a boat.
August is almost almost over and that is sad because it means I can't really wear my nautical themed stuff. (It's the law.) I guess I was too lazy to do a proper "before" picture.

There it is on a hanger what do you want from me I must have been busy. I got that at Goodwill over the winter from what I can recall. I seemed to remember a certain dollar day when I said, "fine, I'll do something with it for a dollar." Here's a closeup of the bodice.

While researching dresses from the company "Lanz Originals" on Etsy, guess what I happened to come across?

Well, look at that. It's by a cool vintage dress label and WHERE'S MY LITTLE SWEATSHIRT/ JACKET?!
I knew this was going to be a nautical-sailor themed dress that I have such a fondness for. So, when summer came around, I pulled this out of hiding. I decided that I hate square necklines, so I did that thing I always do where I pinch a little gather in the center of the bust area. I'm pretty sure I took a picture, but I did this months ago and I'm just know realizing summer's death is imminent and need to post about this asap. No time to search through all my pics, you'll have to wait until the end.
Look at how full the bottom of this thing is:

I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but decided not to mess around. I just cut about 2" off the bottom for the sash. It wasn't fraying so I didn't hem it. Corner cut. Now scroll up a bit and look at those odd little sleeves.
God damn it, I need to keep my pictures better organized! You'll have to imagine how those pointy ends this dress called "sleeves" made it look like I had wide shoulders. I cut them off, but don't worry I did hem the armholes.
So, I was getting somewhere. I went through a bunch of appliques and buttons to look for some sort of boat/anchor to add. That way there would be no mistake that this dress was nautical. I rememberd that several months ago, I pulled this out of the bins at the Goodwill outlet:

Cool, a sexy Halloween costume! Everyone knows that when you wear rubber gloves and dig an item from a large bin of undesirable castoffs, said item should be laundered immediately. Unless...

I want my $.70 back. Can't wash it in any way? I'm guessing the cheap blue dye would run over everything else. I figured I could use it for spare parts. I was reminded of something I've seen when browsing vintage nautical dresses.

Look at that wacky, waving mannequin. See how there's a large anchor right up at the top? Maybe? I seam rippered the gold applique off my costume. Here's a preview with the bodice with the bust gather and anchor.

I'm glad I made the sash belt, because an actual belt might be overkill. I did add a few gold studs to it for some reason.

Done.

I guess this is the demure and modest pose that doesn't fit with the style of the post or the dress.

See you when school starts.

A crap-ton of candles and a lot of cake

It is my birthday. Well it was my b-day on Sunday, but I like to take a whole week. This post has a dress refashion! Which I will get to at some point. Preview?

There's the "before." But, before I get to re-do, I'd like to address something...
Earlier this summer, Facebook showed me one of those "memories". From that wacky, manic, sexy summer of 2012; this picture:

So, Facebook asked me if I remembered when I shared this pic. I sure do. I lightly dented the Internet with this one! It generated some great buzz! Awesome! I was modeling a cute little vintage one-piece. I used to love those. I even made it a tag back then!
It was a grainy mirror pic, but if you see what I see, you see a fine young thing. I looked so thin and in such great shape!
It wasn't that long ago...four years. Well, I guess I've made some changes since then. Here's a more recent picture from earlier this year:

That's a "before" shot of a referee-like dress that I haven't refashioned yet. Not a flattering look, I know. Does anything stand out to you? Here's another.

Looks like I put on a couple of lbs! Rounded out a bit! Added an extra layer of fat! Look at this:

Can you believe I posted a pic of these short shorts in 2013?
Over my birthday weekend, Chris and I went out for breakfast where I had a big-ass Belgian waffle and some sides. Upon my return from the restaurant, I felt like taking a nap and Chris lagged on the couch. "Why are we so tired?" I asked. "Because we're old as fuck?"
"Old as fuck, fat as fuck, and lazy as fuck," Chris replied, listing off some reasons we were headed for a food coma. I LOLed because it was such an exaggeration. I mean, we both look fine.
It was back in the winter that I first noticed that much of my clothing was simply too tight. I was horrified, but it made sense. In recent years, I have done some serious gorging on goodies like donuts, cake, cookies, etc. Up until late 2013, I had a part time retail job which kept me more mobile than I currently am when I'm listing crap on Etsy. Look, things happen!
I've started doing better. I'll probably never be that young gal in that picture again, but I've cut way back on the morning donuts (like hardly every get one) and I've started drinking fruit smoothies for lunch. I've had less ice cream than I would've liked to have this summer.
So, that dress:

What is that? A muu muu? The picture doesn't quite do it justice. Look at all that room in the armpits, and it really didn't have much of a waist. I thought this would be an easy fix. For once, I was right! It was easy!
I'll spare you the process, because once I took it in on the sides, I felt like it was mostly fine just like that. I also shortened those arm straps, they were quite long.

It's not very noticeable, but whenever I'm doing something with pink flowers I'm afraid of not looking cool. So, I pulled the old BeDazzler out and put some little round studs along the top of the dress and on the straps. Added my favorite helper, the waist cincher belt too.

Now look:

The pictures came out a little soft, but doesn't that dress look perfectly cute with a rockabilly vibe? Did you also notice those lovely shoes? Aerosoles! Brand new from Savers, $7!

It's kind of cheating, because I really just made it smaller.

No creative title; tiki skirt

I have a lot of refashions to post. Let's get these done. I'll start with a skirt resizing. So...not really a refash, but it's a great skirt.

That skirt is too damn big. Too long and way too much room in that big fold-over waist at the top.

Can you see the pattern on that?

It's great. What are those tiki...things? Tiki statues? I bought it for three or four bucks, it was half off something. I knew it was too big, but small-ing it would have some challenges. For starters, it was in two layers. Underneath the visible layer was an additional layer to give it some poof.

I just cut out the whole inner layer. By now it was early June so that would be better. One problem solved. See that waist area? It's just a big folded over thing with no elastic in it. It was way too big and I seriously didn't know how to deal with that.
I decided I should probably take in the whole damn thing. There was plenty of room. I cut out sections from each side, but left the top portion intact so I could deal with that later.

What's that saying? Cut several times, measure never? Yeah, that's right. Let's see...

Ha ha ha, that happened. My estimates were way off! So, I went ahead and took in the sides of that knit waist area. Then I did this:

See that elastic piece that I just used to fill in the too small area? That would be the new waist. The material on top of that would fold over, hiding that "fix." This also solved the problem of the too long length.
It worked!

It's my favorite summer jam: the full midi skirt with cropped tee!