Thrifted Dress Redo!

Perhaps it's just me, but there is something very satisfying about pajamas and a warm cup of tea after a long and busy day.

It's a pretty drab thing to think about, I know, let alone talk about it on my blog... But I get excited about comfortable pajamas. Possibly more than is healthy.

Chai tea today. Unfortunately not as strong as the real stuff, but still good.

There is also something very satisfying - and acceptably exciting this time - about finding something hideous and turning it into something wonderful. And as it happens, that is the purpose of today's post...

My little blog's first redo!



Here is the before item, in all it's hideousness:

As you can probably tell, I wasn't really liking the enormous sleeves. However, the fabric was very soft with a pretty design, and the large size meant there would be plenty of fabric to use.
And it only cost $4!


So after a bit of thinking, a bit of fiddling, and lots of seam ripping (which I really should have taken photos of...), I came up with this:

My first step was to remove the sleeves and take in the side seams by quite a lot. The length was already perfect, which is very lucky because the hem is the prettiest part of the pattern, and I seriously don't like hemming.

The fiddliest part was changing the neckline, but it is now my favourite part of the dress. Instead of the V-shaped opening, I decided to button it up to the neck. This meant unpicking a small section of the gathering at the front so that I could overlap the two yoke pieces a little for the buttons. I then regathered that section and handstitched the buttonholes (only because I was terrified to let my machine try them on soft jersey!).

Um... do ignore the trampoline.

With some bright red buttons from my stash - and a thrifted red belt to match - I now have a lovely new outfit that cost me a total of $6!!