Here I am, contemplating the oddities of a universe that enables me to buy random dresses from random thrift stores and still find that nearly ALL the dresses have these crazy side-tie thingies.
Hold onto your hats folks, because it's Refashion Friday. That means it's time to rid the universe of another useless thrift store find. This time, we are saving the world from a shapeless Floral Sack Dress. There is nothing completely terrible about this dress other than its ability to turn the wearer into a shapeless blob. You know that saying, "She would look good in a potato sack"? It isn't true.
The first thing I did was cut off those side-tie things and try to convince myself that they had never existed. Then I pined a cutting line for my new hem. This sack needs to show a little more leg if she is ever going to be interesting. Besides, I need that fabric for a little something else...
Then I pinned a new side seam. I couldn't take it in too much, since I was too lazy to put in a zipper. These fashions are supposed to be quick, after all (most of them take me less than 30 minutes). Adding a zipper would slow me down too much.
I think this dress is having a mid-life crisis. On the one hand, it looks all matronly, but then there is this one-sided side slit that goes all the way up the thigh (if you look closely, you can see it in the next picture). So it looks like it's trying to hold onto it's younger, sexier self. Time to choose, you silly dress.
I took care of that renegade side slit. I picked the seam (I know. I hate that. I try to avoid picking seams whenever I can, but it was for a good cause. 'Cuz this pastor's wife isn't planning on showing that much leg anytime soon.) Then I opened out those side-slit seams and sewed them into a nice, tame little side seam. Bye bye, mid-life crisis side-slit.
Time to sew the rest of the dress.
Zoom, Zoom...
Once I was satisfied with the fit of the rest of the dress, I turned up a hem and sewed it down. But we aren't done yet. Remember the fabric I cut from the bottom of the dress? That sweet little bit of fabric is about to become a lovely belt:
I dug through my stash and found a belt buckle. It was perfect...well almost. It was bright, shiny gold -- not what I was looking for here, but nothing a little spray paint won't fix.
Ta Da!
Scary close-up of my hand...bleh... Donations for the obviously necessary manicure can be arranged by clicking the email icon in the sidebar...
Then I made a narrow hem down the cut side and ends of the fabric strip I cut from the bottom of the dress:
Time to turn this fabric strip into a belt.
I made a running stitch on one short end of the strip, to gather it a bit.
Then I folded the gathered bit over the buckle and hand stitched it in place. Done. It's a little hard to see since it isn't a contrasting fabric, but perhaps you can see the effect in this close-up:
And here is finished the Floral Sack Dress, looking a little less sack-like:
And here I am looking smug with my green cardigan:
And of course, the side-by-side:
A definite improvement, in my opinion.
Not bad for my $0.50 / 30 minute investment.
Happy Friday!
Have a great day,
Angela
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