No Sew Dress Refashion

I've spent the past few days visiting my parents (hence the poor quality iPhone pictures in this post), and as usual my mum had a bag of goodies waiting for me.  It was actually pretty handy, because I packed in a rush and realised once I got here that I didn't really have anything suitable to wear.

So I grabbed this dress from mums bag of hand-me-downs and embarked on a no sew refashion. The dress is beautifully made, but felt too conservative. And that elastic waist band would drive me mad. 

So I borrowed a seam ripper from my mum, turned the dress inside out and carefully unpicked a bit of the waist band so I could remove the elastic. 

The next bit I wanted to change was the neckline as it just didn't feel like my style. 

The back had this little cutout with a button to fasten it. 

So I popped the dress on back to front and folded those edges inward to create a v-neck.

Then I raided my trendy mums wardrobe to accessorise my 'new' dress.

I added an orange beaded necklace, a tan plaited leather belt, and these beautiful orange and tan sandals. 

It still feels a bit more formal than my usual style, but I still think it's rather nice. (And I have no idea why I have this 'sticky-outy' bit going on with my hair).

It's a shame I can't keep the accessories too ;-)

And because I'm still at my parents and doing this post from my phone and I don't know how to do a side-by-side before and after shot on it. Here is the before shot again, just in case you forgot what it looked like before.   

Easy-Peasy Girls Dress

Miss 7 spotted this at the op-shop for $1.50 - how could we resist?

I think this was a strapless top, but we both agreed this would look much better as a girls dress.

Unfortunately it seemed to be a teen size 14, so despite the shirred elastic top part, it would not stay up on my 7 year old.

So I took in the sides at the top, but left the lower part as it was.

Remember this fabric that I cut from the hem of my last refashion?  I rolled those fraying edges under and sewed them flat.

To create these...

Shoulder straps.

And sewed them in place to complete this easy-peasy refashion.

The hardest part was trying to get a photo of the finished item.

Running...

Climbing...

Hiding...

And then she finally stopped to feed the fish.

This has fast become a favourite dress and was well worth the $1.50 we paid for it.

Restyled Dress

These photos are terrible, I had no 'photographer' on hand this day so I had to work out how to use the auto timer function on my camera.  I struggled working out how to get my whole body in the photo without it blurring, but I think you get should get the drift of the style of this dress from these 2 photos.

  I've seen this style being worn by other people and thought it was quite nice, but it really doesn't seem to suit me, so I decided some minor tweaking was in order to create a dress I would actually wear.

Firstly I chopped off these ribbon thingy's, just because I find them annoying.

I wanted to shorten this second layer bit, as the back was longer than the front and I wanted them to be the same length.  So I drew a chalk line as a guide for where I should cut it.

The first bit I cut off didn't even out the length of the front and back, so I ended up chopping off a little bit extra.

Because the original shape of this dress really didn't suit me, my plan was to add elastic to the bottom of the upper 'layer' of the dress to create some shape.  So I sewed a 'casing' on the bottom edge of this upper layer.

After I had sewn the casing, I threaded through some elastic using a 'bodkin' which is a nifty little do-dacky that makes threading elastic really easy.

Then I sewed the ends of the elastic together.

The other part of this dresses style that I thought looked terrible on me was the length of the skirt.  I decided I wanted this dress to sit just below my knees, so I measured and cut off about 6cm of length (the off cuts will be used in my next project).  

And because I am impatient and didn't want to pin or iron the hem before sewing it I just whizzed it through the machine and hoped for the best.

The hem worked out just fine.

With the weather finally hinting at cooler temperatures I was able wear boots and a cardigan.

I even managed a photo outside.

Dress: Thrifted $4, Boots: Dr Marten Wedge Calf Boots used from eBay $120, Cardigan: old wardrobe item from Tree of Life, Accessories: Old wardrobe items.

Topsy Turvey Tunic

I've had this skirt in my stash for a while now.  I love the colour, but the style of the skirt wasn't that interesting.

The back of the skirt had a split in it... and some holes.  I did some mending on these as this split is going to become the back neckline of my new tunic/dress.

After the repairs were complete, I cut along the side seams of the skirt (about a hand length) to create arm holes.  Then I pinned and sewed the back hem to the front hem of the skirt to create the neckline.  I also hemmed up the arm holes - sorry I didn't take enough photos of the steps here, but hopefully it will make sense at the end.

The final step of this refashion was to chop off the elastic waist band, and hem the cut edge as this is to become the hem of my new dress.   And this was this skirt to dress refashion is complete.

I really like this dress worn loose like this, its great for hot days.

It can also be worn with the old waist band used as a belt.

The skirts back split creates a nice low back detail for the dress.

Overall I'm pretty happy with this dress.  I like how it can be dressed up or down, and I think if the weather ever starts to cool down it will layer nicely with winter items.

Dress: $0, hand-me-down.  Accessories: vintage scarf once belonged to my mum, my trusty Pirates Dreaming spoon necklace, and against the advice of my Physio I am back into my Duckfeet sandals.  

Maxi Dress to Jumpsuit

I had this idea a while ago to make a jumpsuit (or romper if you prefer) out of a maxi dress.  I had no idea if this would work, or even if I could pull off wearing one of these kooky items.  But one thing I love about refashioning unwanted clothes is that you can have a bit of fun with it, and if it doesn't pan out its no big deal.

After keeping an eye out for a suitable maxi dress for about the past month or so, I came across this.  It was an XL, so I figured it would give me enough fabric to create the 70's wide leg look I envisaged.

The first thing I did was cut out the majority of the lining, for no other reason than it was an unbearably hot polyester material.

I wanted the bodice to fit better, so I pinned each side like this and sewed new side seams.

Then I measured the width of the 'skirt' to find the centre point, and then cut up the middle like this.  After cutting, I sewed the new inner leg seam and this refashion was complete.  

This was actually a pretty straight forward project, however I'm not so sure I like the way this jumpsuit sits.  If I decide its not for me I'll just chop off the top of the 'jumpsuit' and create a really comfy pair of pyjama pants.

Sorry I'm a bit low on the number of after photos on this one, I wasn't really in the mood for photos that day.

Jumpsuit/Romper: $4 thrifted maxi dress, Belt: Thrifted - $2, Jewelery: personal collection

Easy Peasy Kids Jumpsuit

I picked up this floral number for my younger daughter for $1.50 in the kids section of my local opshop.  

A strapless jumpsuit which I'm guessing was really intended for teens. 

It came with a sash for around the waist, which was to become the straps.

I decided this would be a halter neck, so I folded the sash in half to find the centre of it and then pinned it front and centre on the jumpsuit.

Then sewed it in place.  

I left the sash long as I liked the way it looked tied up at the back.

This really does seem a bit too easy to be classed as a 'refashion'... but what can I say, sometimes they are super easy.

Oh how I wish I could pull off wearing a jumpsuit the way my daughter does - this is a hint at my next post... womens jumpsuit urggggg....