This dress was sent to me by Brittney, who was the lovely reader who crafted that knit rose for me that I wore a few weeks back... (Refresher HERE)
This brown dress was in the package she forwarded and this is what she had to say:
"A friend was going to take a bunch of clothes to Goodwill, and she let me look through them first. I didn't find anything that I wanted to alter, but I knew I wanted to send to you. When I pull out my mom's sewing machine, it's usually to work on a quilt, make curtains, or mend a small hole in a seam. But I'm on the lookout for something I can recreate, and when I find it, I'll definitely send in pictures."
It's a super thin material with a ruffled edge neckline.
The dress is a bit frumpy on me, so I have a few tricks to work out to make it out-of-my-house ready!
I began with removing both sleeves. They had elastic at the cuffs with more ruffles and I wanted to make the neckline the focus, so with a seam ripper I started to remove...
I took off one sleeve, then the other!!
Instead of taking the dress in, I decided to add a drawstring element to the waist! I turned the dress inside out and pinched the waist about an inch underneath the worn out elastic. This pinched inch (sorry about the rhyme time!) is going to be the space where the drawstring will be, so I went around the waist and pinned marks where to sew.
Once the waist was pinned, I began to sew around. I left a two inch space in the front center of the piece to allow for the ribbon drawstring to go in and out.
After sewing my little fabric tube, I took black nylon ribbon (I used 3/4") and a safety pin...
...pinned the safety pin to the edge of the ribbon and began to weave the ribbon through the space left at the waist. I made sure to bring it all the way around and then cut my ribbon when I had enough to form a bow when I was finished.
It's looking a little like my pajama pants!!
With the sleeves gone, I decided to do a little cinching and pinching!! I tried the dress on and C&P'd at the collarbone with a mini-safety pin on each side.
Once the sleeves were finished, I added some tights, ankle boots, and tied a bow at the waist to complete the look! It's tae bo time! (Sorry...just couldn't resist when it came out of my mouth naturally.)
I loved this dress - the ruffles are way more pronounced now and you can actually see them!!
It was a pretty warm day, but it cooled down fast. I brought a jacket and a sweater along with me and had them both on at one point. PS, a thin dress, tights, and a metal park bench = not the most genius idea when it's cold out.
But, when a picture is being taken, the model fights through the pain!! I was just thinking about the Mexican food that I was going to be nibbling on and the faster I got the shot, the faster I'd be munching on chips and salsa.
It worked!
Thank you to Miss Brittney!! (And a little note of congrats to her as well, as she just secured an awesome teaching job in China!)
