Mom's Maker Makeover Dress

Hello again! I won't bore you with the details of my long absence - suffice to say that we moved out of our apartment into a house, and it was a lot of work but well worth it! If you keep a close eye on the backgrounds in the pictures, you'll be able to see my new floors.

Anyhow, I have an exciting and much belated announcement! Refashion Without Rules will be making its first public appearance at the Prince George Mini Maker Faire on Saturday, September 30th! I am both excited and nervous to showcase my projects in person, and I hope to see you there!

My mom has agreed to help me person my booth, so the least I could do was manage a refashion for her! Obviously, I only want to give my mom the best, so I gave her this lovely kaftan.

She looks awfully happy to be wearing that...

This photo was taken at a family dinner at my grandparents', and the family were justifiably dubious when they first saw this frock. There is a lot of dress there, and it is very very bright--the picture doesn't do justice to just how tomato-y the red of this dress is. But the bottom border is gorgeous and the fabric is comfortable. This dress just needs to be a lot less, so that is what I planned to do.

The first thing I did was cut out the middle section, because I wanted to keep that lovely border and lose some of the red. There was a zipper down the back, but I cut right through it (making sure it was done up, of course).

Losing over a foot of length and a lot of red!

Then I also trimmed the sleeves to lose some more of the redness, at my mom's request.

Trim one sleeve...

...and use the cut section to measure the other sleeve.

Then I had to put this dress back together, sans center. The rule of thumb whenever joining two pieces of a garment is to make sure the right sides (the patterned or finished sides) are together--but simple as that sounds it always takes me a few pinning attempts to make sure I don't put something together half backwards.

Right sides together? Check.

I matched up the side and back seams and pinned them.

Seams properly pinned.

I pinned around the rest of the edge. Since the bottom piece from the skirt was wider than the top, I added two pleats in both the front and back to collect the excess fabric.

A pinned pleat.

Then I sewed them together! I went right over the zipper. Most sewing machines won't have a problem with a small zipper like this one.

It did make a cha-chunk sound, though...

With the top and bottom of the dress reunited, I noticed a slight problem. The original dress had a slit up the side, but with the shortened torso, that slit had migrated to an uncomfortable height. I unpicked the hem around the slit.

Picky pick...

Then I sewed the two sides of the slit together to match up with the existing seam.

Just follow the line...

Lastly, I dealt with the sleeves, and I apologize because I didn't take any pictures of that step! I did end up trimming a bit more off the sleeves to round them off, and then I simply hemmed the raw edge.

Here's the finished product!

Looking good, Mom!

 She'll be wearing this at the Maker Faire, and I'll be (hopefully) wearing an all-new creation there too! Come by for a live preview of my next post!

The De-Nightification Dress

It's July!  And do you know what that means?  One dollar clothing sale at the Hospice Resale Shop, my favourite second-hand store!  I picked this one up a few days ago, and it ended up being really easy, and required zero sewing!  I donned this nightyish number because the fabric was perfectly breezy for an already warming-up day.

All ready for a nap!

All this dress needed was to lose that bottom ruffle and get a little shaping.  It was quite pretty otherwise.  So it was off to grab the seam ripper and watch a mustachioed Belgian detective solve theatrical murders while I picked away.

Pick, pick, pick...

It took about a half hour to separate the two pieces.

Simple as that, it was ready to wear!

Just add a belt!

A quick and easy no-sew refashion for a hot summer day!

Canada Day Sundress

I decided to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday with a brand new refashion to wear out to the park for the festivities.  The weather has been warm but stuffy recently, and I wanted something light and airy to wear.  Unfortunately, the best I could find was this.

Open your eyes, dummy!

Icky side tie thingies notwithstanding, I could see that this dress was just begging to be turned into the lovely summer dress I wanted.  I started off with a couple of little chops.

I have plans for you!

Then I made one big chop!

Bye-bye, sleeves!

Now it was time to start the stitchery.  I folded under the raw top edge and pinned it, then I stitched it down.

Fold and pin!

Then I stitched down the front placket so that I wouldn't get any awkward button-gapage when I took this dress in.

Follow the existing seam to hide my work!

Then I pulled Gruella out of her corner and put the dress on her, inside-out, in order to judge how much to take the dress in.

Just a wee bit!

Now it was time to get out those side-ties I cut off at the beginning of this refashion!  They were all wrinkled and twisted, so I ironed the heck out of them to flatten them out.

You will be flat!

I pinned these to the dress like so...

See where I'm going with this?

Then I stitched down the side seams to make the top of the dress more fitted, and sewed on the straps!  I tried it on, and decided to take in the sides just a touch more.  When I laid out the fabric to make my adjustments, look who came to investigate!

Skimble decided to help!

After removing kitty from fabric, and sewing down the sides just that teeny bit more, I was all finished!

I said open your eyes!

Not bad for a refashion that, according to all photographic evidence, I did with my eyes closed.  Now I'm all ready for a warm day at the park and an evening of live music!

Happy Canada Day!

A Pirate's Life for Me? Top

This dress couldn't decide if it was going for "nautical vintage pinup" or "clown costume."

I tried to find a telescope to complete the look...

It gets better--the V-shaped bib is actually removable, just in case you didn't want to go for all-out worst-ever-stewardess uniform and instead were going for a more casual just-plain-awkward dress.

Yes, this improves matters greatly :S

Of course the first thing I did was ditch the bib.

Buh-bye!

Turns out the black bow was actually safety-pinned on.  Was it an addition by a previous owner who didn't think this dress was awful enough as it was?  Some mysteries shall never be solved.

The next step was to rip out the strange little rectangular shoulder pads, and remove the now-unnecessary (and rather chipped and faded) buttons meant to attach the bib because that thing was definitely not going back on!

Gone!

And gone!

I decided that this dress was not salvageable as a dress--it was still just too much red and white stripeyness for me to stomach.  So I chopped it off under the existing waistline.

Snip, snip, and a dress becomes a shirt!

Then I cut out the lining, because I didn't like how it made this shirt bubble at the waistline rather than hang straight.

It wasn't too transparent--nobody will notice!

Unfortunately, that was where I made a big uh-oh.  You would think, given the number of times I do this, that I would learn to be extra careful not to snip anything that I don't want snipped, right?  Wrong.

AAARRRGGGHHH!

This was supposed to be where this refashion ended--with a new nautical top.  Now, though, I either had to decide to scrap this refashion wholesale, or find some way to fix it.  I opted for repair.  I couldn't just sew it back together--it would be way too obvious.  I decided, in panic, to cut off the bottom elastic.

Where am I going with this?

Then I cut a long slit up each side of the shirt.

Ok, I'm starting to develop a plan.

Finally, I tied the ends of each slit together with a little knot.

Oh-kaaaayy...

To be honest, I wasn't really sure whether any of this would work.  I was just trying to bring this refashion back from the brink of disaster.  You'll notice I didn't finish any of my raw edges--I wasn't hopeful, at this point.

But...

It's a miracle!

Somehow all of that cutting and hacking and tying and hoping turned out a presentable top!  Hindsight, being what it is, I have since realized that I could have saved myself a lot of grief simply by sewing up the accidental snippage and then covering it with something--probably with the black bow from the bib.  It would have added an interesting feature to this stripey top, and resulted in a much more finished product--without the raw edges that are tucked under the edge of the top in this photo.

But I think this refashion still shows that even when you make refashioning mistakes, there are ways to recover!  I'm glad I didn't give up on this one!

Summer in Waiting Dress

Hello!  I'm back!  Keeping a blog is a lot more difficult than I thought it would be--I like the writing and planning and posting, but finding time to do refashions to write about it a bit of a challenge.  I'm finally coasting off the end of a very busy bout of working two jobs, and my first priority was to get in some quiet time and reading!  Now that I've satisfied that craving (with the magnificent Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, if you're interested), I can get back to some sewing!

Today I started with this beauty.

I've seen more flattering potato sacks...

The shape of this dress is all wrong.  The waistline sits right above my hips, the length cuts me off mid-calf and makes me look even shorter than I naturally am, and its just overall too big on me.  But this dress did have a pretty floral pattern that was perfect for the sunny summery day outside, and I liked the overall idea of this dress--button-down top, gathered skirt, strapless.  It just needed a little help.

The first thing I tackled was the waistline, which also took care of the bad length.

Snippety snip! Hungry scissors.

I cut off the skirt just above where it joined the bodice, keeping the original gathering and seam.  I could have unpicked the whole thing and regathered the skirt, which would have doubtless created a more streamlined final product, but my whole point is refashioning without rules.  I don't do things the "right" way.  So sue me.

Then I took out the middle section of the bodice, shortening it by about half. 

Chop! Chop!  And goodbye awkward shape!

I wanted a sort of empire height waist on this dress.  Now I had to put these pieces back together again, sans middle section!

Hm, this picture doesn't really explain much

I turned the skirt inside-out, put the top inside (right sides together), and pinned the bodice and skirt along the cut edges, making sure to line up the side and front seams.  Then I stitched.

Chug chug chug...my sewing machine sounds like a train.

Now I had a dress again, but it was still too big.  Enter Gruella II for her part.  I put the dress inside-out on Gruella, and pinned down the sides.  I took this dress in by about three centimeters under the arms, six at the waist, and two along the length of the skirt.

Gruella does her part

Then I stitched down those side wings.  I tried the dress on, decided that it could stand to come in just a titch more, and adjusted the seams accordingly.  Then there was just one more step!

Nom! Nom! Nom!  More hungry scissors!

I took my pinking shears to the bulky extra fabric along the sides and chopped it off.  And here it is!  

Lookin' Lovely!

Now this dress has a shape I'd wear out in public, and just in time for a lovely sunny day! I think this is a vast improvement over the shapeless sacking I started with. 

The Back-on-the-Bandwagon Dress

Here's a much belated refashion, though my absence has not been for lack of trying!  You see, I've had to deal with two failed refashions over the last month.  First there was this:

Just what is the purpose of this?

My intention with this dress was to simply take it in along the sides and shorten it, and turn the sleeves into cap sleeves.  It wasn't supposed to be difficult, but then I discovered that the liner in this dress was in the final stages of decrepitude, and it suddenly no longer seemed worth the effort to repair it.

Then there was this dress:

Rather summery for March.

This was supposed to be my St. Patrick's Day outfit--in fact, I wasn't intending to make any changes to this dress at all until I noticed that it was covered in stains.  I scrubbed it with stain remover, but to no avail.  In a last-ditch effort to make this dress wearable, I tried appliqueing some patches over the stains, but frankly, it just looked stupid.

So that brings us to today's refashion, which is admittedly not all that interesting, but at least resulted in an improved product rather than full scale destruction and frustration.

Here's the dress:

I lack the boobage to fill out this dress

This is a 100% polyester old-ladyish dress with some very charming detail at the neckline.  Here's a close-up:

Pretty!! 

All this dress needed was a bit of slimming around the bust area.  I put it inside-out on Gruella and pinned the sides to take in the top half of the dress.

Just a teeny bit

Then I ran it under my machine, tried it on again, was happy with the fit, and trimmed off the excess:

Zipping down the pinned line!

Snippity snip!

Here's the new fit:

Do you notice a difference?

Ok, so maybe there isn't much of a difference to notice, here, but at least I finished a refashion, ok?  I dressed it up with my polka-dot tights to give this rather staid dress a bit of fun, and added a blazer to keep my shoulders warm.

The end result!

This was a difficult refashion not because it was tricky sewing, but because I had to get over my disappointment and frustration at my earlier failures to pull this one together.  Now that I've managed a success, I feel much better moving forward!