Flower Frenzy

Happy Thriftysew Thursday! (How have I not thought of that sooner?)

Here's the gorgeousness that I started with this week:

Obviously it's the most flattering dress anyone could own! (Sarcasm.) This has actually been sitting in the craft room for a pretty long time. I just had no idea what to do with it. Finally, I got it out this week and just played around with it in all different ways to see what might work. I liked the fabric and print, but I wasn't too fond of the neckline as well as the obvious sizing issues. My first thought was just to cinch it in, a la this:

I did like the cinched look and it seemed a bit kimono inspiration-esque, but I had no idea what to do with the neckline in this case. So I continued to fool around with it and finally decided on what to do.

I unzipped the back zipper, then jacked the whole thing down. This made the V-neck in the front into a nice sweetheart neckline, and the cinched "waist"(that ended up mid-breast in the before) at the actual waist. I liked it, so I rolled with it.

 

First thing to get chopped was the zipper.

Then, I kept the dress pulled down to the armpits and held the arm straight out. I then pinned a straight line down to create the sides of the dress.

Now, just so you guys don't start to think I'm actually getting good at this sewing thing... this is what happened when sewing the sides up.

Go home, sewing machine, you're drunk.

 

That is my needle stuck in the down position, with the fabric shoved through the feed dog and down into the machine (where the bobbin is). Do I know how this happened? Not a flippin' clue. What did I have to do about it? Well... tear it apart.

After tearing it all apart I decided to just go ahead and clean it with a few q-tips. I hadn't done this since I bought the machine and I have a cover on it when not in use so I figured it wasn't all that dirty. Holy hell, was I wrong. Check this nastiness out. (Warning: clean freaks beware)

So, lesson learned: machine will be cleaned much MUCH more often.

 

Eventually, machine was cleaned, jam was fixed and the sides were sewn up. I then sewed the back up about an inch or so to make up for the loss of the zipper, and then I folded down the sides from the armpit to the back to create a slight v in the back and to clean it up a bit.

 

Final product? I'm pretty happy with it. Now I have a flowy, summery maxi dress to have some lazy days in these hot hot summers.

And the back looks a little something like this:

I'm excited to wear it! Thanks for reading - as always, leave your comments below or give me your critiques, hoorays and whatever else have you at thriftysew@gmail.com (please!).