Stay tuned...

Stay tuned, faithful readers, for a mid-week blogging. I caught myself a nifty little stomach bug that put me down for the count on blog day. Once I feel better, I'm hoping to get something together in time for Halloween, which is the best time of the year. 

Always a Bridesmaid...

... once a bride!! (Eat that, ridiculous old saying)

Last weekend's wedding festivities were so much fun that I could not resist the formal attire rack at the Salvation Army this weekend. These dresses aren't just dresses; they are symbols. Symbols of fantastic nights, best friends, close family and bringing two lives into one. Maybe the dress went through a crazy night, a stressful night, a funny night, or maybe the dress even wound up in jail and had to get bailed out (well hey there, lifetime movie). It's so much fun to imagine what types of activities these dresses went through. I couldn't resist but to pick one up, and this $7 dollar beauty fit the bill.

This was very obviously bridesmaid, including the telltale sash and everything. It was pretty well taken care of, and all in all in not too bad of shape. The worst things I could see when I was at the store was that it was sized at an 18, so it was going to be too big, and the back lace-up was missing, I figured it wasn't too big of a deal and scooped it up.

I should definitely preface this post with this: I am always awesome in my head, and my plans always work out well. Also, in my head, everything turns to be out super easy because I can break it down step by step. Keep in mind - this is all in my head. Because reality, especially for this project, is a witch. (Feel free to swap in the "b" if you are aged 18 or older.)

The first thing I noticed was that, although sized at 18, it was fitted to a much smaller size. I should have seen that coming, really, because I know the three truths that are involved in buying a bridesmaids dress: a) order a much larger size than you are b) get your fitness on because you want to look as fantastic as possible and c) get the dress fitted to you (usually at your new size if you did the fitness part well). So that was the first bonus: I didn't have to take this in.

The first thing I did was deal with that awful sash. Sashes look very pretty at weddings; however, that sash will never, ever be in that "you can totally wear this again" bride mentality. Now, I'm not sure if wedding shops are just getting nicer, or if this one (Alfred Angelo) just decided to save on thread, but this sash was connected by three whole strings.

This was simple enough to snip off and I found myself confident that this was going to go well. In hindsight... I'm silly.

Next, I put on the dress and measured down to my knee. Then, I took off the dress, made the measurements all across the front and back, and connected my dots with my seamstress wheel chalk thing. That's obviously the technical term.

Next - and here was the mentally hard part - I cut the dress up the side seam and chopped off the bottom.

This all went very well so my confidence was only a little shot when I put the hem on my lining of the dress. I really, really botched this, and had I known it would start off a terrible pattern of messing the rest of it up, I would have ripped it all out and tried it again. Alas, I could not see into that future, so my thinking at this point was "it's just the lining - no one will see".

It bunched, it pulled, it wasn't even - it wasn't good. I came to the conclusion afterward that I should have used a straight stitch (for some reason I'm mildly obsessed with the zig zag stitch. My machine often doesn't leave it...) and also should have put my stitch length much longer so it didn't pull and bunch. This will be the first lesson I follow when I decide to go back and fix this dress.

Next, I attempted the hem of the body of the dress. You know, the one people see. I knew it had to be some sort of blind stitch, but my machine does not have the capability for that. So... I had to do it by hand. Mind you, I have only blind stitched by hand a few times and it was mainly on pant legs that no one sees. Knowing this, I probably should have googled the activity further, but instead I just hopped into it. I didn't take a picture of this process, but you'll see in the end that my by-hand blind stitch leaves much to be desired.

Next, with my confidence no longer even slightly existent, I decided to create a cord from the bottom of the dress to make a new tie for the lace up back. I cut an inch wide sash off the entire bottom scrap and folded it in half, rights sides together, with the intention of sewing it up and bringing it inside out to have a nice cord with no seams. After it was all sewn, it did not want to go inside out. No matter how many pencils I attempted to stick in this tube, it was just not happening. Eventually, I just laced up the back with the wrong-side out tube full of seams so I could see if it was at least long enough to work if I were to make a cord correctly. Luckily, it was long enough.

It was at this point that I called it a day. Sometimes when you're plans aren't going as they are in your head, you just need to step back, expand your knowledge on the subject and come back to it with a fresh mind - and that is what I plan to do. Eventually I will come back to this disaster dress, seam rip all my work and re-do all the hems and the back cord to the point where I'm able to wear this in public without being totally ashamed. I mean - I guess I could wear this out in public... in bad lighting and with the assurance that everyone is too drunk to even know what a proper hem looks like. Until then, here is the visual to give you a giggle.

Maybe I can pass off the wonky hem as ruffles? Anybody? No?

 

Better luck next time. This is one dress that will not see a wedding again anytime soon.

Pretty Plaid

Happy Holiday Monday! This weekend in the US was Columbus Day Weekend. For most, that means a 3 day weekend. For me this weekend meant a wedding and travel filled weekend with a bonus day off. I had an out of town wedding this weekend that was fantastic - everything we did was a lot of fun and we had a great time hanging out with the family.

Now, I'm sitting home on my bonus day off (this isn't one of our paid holidays so I just took the day off as a vacation day) and making up for my lack of posting yesterday. Luckily, this one was super simple that I could use the rest of my day to rest up and take a relaxing few hours to myself.

I started off with this beauty:

When purchasing this, I had St. Patrick's Day in mind, but there was no way I could let it sit for that long. I could not quite figure this dress out - it had some strange layering that had me going for quite a while.

My only saving grace of knowing I had this on right was that the tags were in the back. That was literally it.

 

First thing that had to go was the shoulder pads. Snip snip!

Next thing I did was separate all the layers. This was probably the best decision I could have made because it all fell into place at that point and it was super simple to come up with updates for the rest of it. So simple, in fact, that I just jumped right into it and didn't take any pictures of the process. Whoops!

Basically - I took the weird layer off of the top, and found that there were buttons in the back that were supposed to be buttoned up once the dress was all set and on correctly. The arms were also super large. After I took this entire piece off, all I had to do was turn it around so the buttons were in front and boom - I had a cropped plaid jacket. Literally no sewing involved. Just a matter of letting it shine on its own.

This is how you know Colette is having a lazy day. I didn't even take the time to put on real pants, ya'll. (But seriously... loving leggings on lazy, rainy days like today!)

Once I had the poncho-esque layer off, I was left with a dress that was actually really pretty. The top was a lining, but was a thicker lining that wasn't see through, so all I had to do was throw on a trusty undershirt and the top was set.  Next, as the dress went down to my ankles, I took up the hem quite a few inches. This ended up being knee-length. I will probably keep it this length for Christmas, but then hike up the hem for St Patrick's Day in March to switch up the look a bit. It's nothing if not versatile, eh?

I was very happy with this dress and super pleased that, once it was all torn apart, it took very simple steps to throw this back into an updated, fashionable (maybe?!) look.

As always, comment below or shoot an e-mail to thriftysew@gmail.com. Always love hearing your comments.

Now, I will most certainly take a hint from my cats and cuddle up and enjoy the rest of the day. I suggest everyone does the same! Cheers!

Daring to Dye

Happy weekend, friends. This post is coming up a bit late, but it's only because it was a pretty fantastic weekend. First, it started with this:

That is tailgating at a college football game, my friends. My apologies for the bad iPhone photo, but I wasn't planning on this picture making the post, but I had too much fun to not say anything.

So we went to the Syracuse vs. Clemson game. And for those of you that haven't seen the Syracuse campus, it's pretty much the original Hogwarts.

I mean, it's not, but it looks pretty legit.

The stadium was absolutely packed though - a whopping 48,000+ people.

So the project for this weekend was one that was laid back and able to keep me focused on weekend football, as I was already in the mood to watch. I chose a skirt that I picked up for 50 cents.

This skirt was overly large, and in a pattern that I wasn't a huge fan of. I took the opportunity to use up some extra products that were in my craft room...

Neither bottle of dye had enough liquid in it to do much damage on a single piece of attire, but together they had enough to make something... hopefully purple. So, I threw it all in the bucket and let it sit for a few hours while I sat down to a relaxing weekend of doing... pretty much nothing.

My grade school logic turned out correctly, because when I dumped out my dye bucket, this gorgeous purple is what came out.

After a quick rinse and spin in the washer and then a dryer tumble, out came my new skirt. It was a bit more subdued of a pattern, but still had enough interest to not be a "regular" old black skirt.

Altogether, it came out pretty well. After taking in the skirt about 2 inches or so, it started to become something wearable. I don't see myself wearing it anytime soon to work, but I feel like it has some possibility of Halloween costume or comfortable weekend wear. (Who knew there was a single piece of clothing that could be in both categories!?)

 

So not the most exciting refashion in the blogosphere, but I did get my dying practice on and even got a bit of mixology (boom!) going with *gasp* accurate results.

 

As always,. comments are welcome as well as e-mails to thriftysew@gmail.com. I've gotten a few comments about my lack of updating the Before and After page - and you are correct, I have slacked big time on that page. I will be doing updates soon, and hoping to make each picture a link to the corresponding post. Stay tuned, and keep checking. I'll stop being lazy at some point.