Lanky vs Lace: Round One

I picked up this too small dress because I knew I could do something great with the lacy top layer.

 

 

I ripped out the seam between the top and the skirt because that was also too tight, and then cut out the liner.  After that the lace went in a dye bath that was half RIT navy and half crimson.  The lasce was polyester so I knew it wouldn't take much dye, but I figure a pale purple would be easy to work with.



 

Instead it came out pink!  The blue didn't take at all.  When I dyed a shrug with a different RIT blue it didn't take any either!  This was so frustrating since I am not a pink person, and especially not a pale pink.  Ugh.  I'll have to figure out something else so I don't have to toss this.

Renegade Seamstress Inspired Shirt

One of my friends is an amazing knitter and made me a fabulous pair of mittens with DNA helixes on them for the cabling.  So cute and nerdy!  To repay her, I wanted to refashion her a shirt.  She picked a medium tan basic cotton tee that I forgot to take a before picture of. :(

I wanted to try my hand at dying, so with her permission I tossed the shirt in a steaming pot of half navy blue, half teal RIT dye.  When it came out I sliced it and resewed, creating a seam that was meant to give the illusion of it being a wrap.  I removed the sleeves and cut a new neckline because she wanted a tank top.  Then, inspired by The Renegade Seamstress's piece here, I got to pining and sewing.  And here's my friend modeling the result!

 

The dye job ended up uneven, but she and I both liked it that way.  Artistic pintucks are lots of fun!

A Skirt on the Wild Side

When I was pouring through the skirt racks at Savers, I immediately grabbed this piece and did not put it down:

I mean, it was obviously too long but look at that pattern at the bottom!  Giraffes!  It's also a broomstick skirt so I figured that shortening it would be easy.

I used my red skirt as a pattern since it was similarly flowy.  I didn't leave a seam allowance because my red skirt is a touch too long and hits me right below the knees if I don't roll the waist band up.

Chop!  I used the pattened "fold the cut part over as you go to keep your hem straight" technique here.  It tooks some time since there was an amazing amount of fabric here.  Can you see how great those giraffes are, though?

Next I pinned alll that fabric at the top and then stitched it down to make a casing for my new elastic waistband.

I threaded the elastic through and stitched it together!

And voila!  A fantastic, flowy skirt in my favorite flame-y colors.  I immediately wore it to work the next day and got a million compliments.  It's super fun to twirl in, although probably dangerous for windy days.

I will note that despite my folding my hem was not perfectly even.  It was only off by an inch and a half in one place, though, and I found that if I kept the shorter side in front the hem looked even because my butt lifted the longer side just the right amount!  So, yay for happy accidents, and my large caboose. ;)

Hawaiian Dress to Work Blouse

Here it is: my very first refashion.  I had just mainlined waaaay too much Refashionista and decided to give this sewing clothes into different clothes thing a go.  First, I stopped by Savers on my way to work and lucked upon this swanky dress:

Amazing print and fabric, but way too huge and shapeless.  I am not actually a gigantic pear with a human head on top, but this dress (muu muu?) would like you to think so.  I chopped off a good amount of length, took it in a little right under the bust, and swapped it back to front so that the V at my spine was now over my bust.  The excess from the skirt got folded in half and turned into a great sash:

Voila! The pleats were original to the dress and made for some great neckline detailing.  And because the lopped off fabric became a sash, this project was a zero waste one too!  There was no tag saying what fabric this was made out of, but there was this one that I had to remove when I flipped it:

Thanks for the awesome new work shirt, Hawaii!