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!