De-Fashioning: A Silk Dress into a. . .Beauty Pillowcase?

So this one is going to be a little backwards. . .That's why I called it "De-fashioning."

I have been trying to sell the following dress on eBay for TWO YEARS, and it has been hanging in our spare bedroom. I bought it on sale for next to nothing from an online consignment store--even though it's totally opposite my body type--thinking I could resell it and make a profit. It is 100% green silk satin. It is "Laundry by Design" and was originally $300, or something! I had it on eBay for some ridiculous price, like $13. Lots of people viewed it and a couple people added it to their watch lists, but no one ever bought it or even made an offer!

This is the back. 

So, now we come to the epiphany that I had today. I have been reading more and more (from very informed places like fashion magazines and. . .Pinterest), that I should be using a silk satin pillowcase. It's apparently good for your hair, because it doesn't strip your hair of oils like cotton does, and doesn't promote breakage due to its slippery nature. It can also benefit your skin by not promoting acne and wrinkles because it's organic. So, here's the epiphany I had: Why should I pay money for a silk pillowcase, when I already have one hanging in my closet?

See how it's backward? Normally, a DIYer tells you how to make something from nothing. Here I am telling you to cut up a frickin' $300 dress to make a pillowcase!!! 

Now, here's why I'm posting this: You can create a beautiful silk pillowcase yourself by frequenting thrift stores and looking for silk items on their sale/dollar racks. I just bought a 100% silk hot pink over-sized shirt yesterday for $.40! So, it can be done! I once found a 100% silk zebra print prom dress for a dollar. (I blogged about that one here. I turned it into a skirt.)

So here you can see the metallic sheen. (It's actually much greener in real life.)

First step.

I opened the dress out. The part on the left was polyester lining that I discarded. The part on the right is silk.

It's hard to explain, but the bottom strip of the dress was sandwiched between the lining and the fashion fabric. In order to free it, I cut this seam off.

So, here is the dress in all its fundamental parts.

The part on the right is the bottom strip I was talking about before. (You can see the ironed fold down its center that I opened out.) I used this measurement as my guide for cutting the bigger section of the dress. That part I'm cutting off on the bottom of this picture will come up later.

After I cut, I "trued" up all the sides. This took awhile because silk satin is EXTREMELY slippery.

I got all my sides cut. If you look on the left-hand edge, you will see a seam. That is an original seam of the dress. I figured that would be one less seam I'd have to worry about sewing, so I used it!

This is that little part I cut off earlier. This would become the opening of the pillowcase.

I measured it out and trued it up as well.

I sewed both ends of the band. . .

. . .and then I folded it in half, ironed it, and set it aside.

Even though it had straight seams, I still used pins because it wanted to slide all over the place.

So, here you can start to see the pillowcase coming together.

I made sure to zig-zag all my seams, because this fabric was fraying like crazy!

All I needed to do now, was attach the band.

And through the magic of blogging, it is now attached.

I cut off all the excess fraying.

Okay, I know what you are thinking. "If she is worried about wrinkles, doesn't she realize she has a big old seam down the middle?" Don't worry, I'm way ahead of you.

See? I have one of those chiropractic pillows where you sleep on your back when your head is in the middle, and on your side when you are on either side. You can see the seam is in the perfect place. My face will never rest there.

Okay, another tip, and I would've explained this earlier, but it was too confusing. Anyways, if you make a pillowcase like this, make sure that the slippery part goes from side to side and not up and down. You move from side to side in your sleep, so you want the sheen to go with your movement and not against it.

So, I pretty much used the entire dress for this. I just wanted you to see. (That big part is the lining. Look at what is left of the actual silk! Not much!)

The End!