To Tommy from Zooey...by Jessica...Navy and Red Cable Knit Dress

Zooey Deschanel has been sporting dresses from her Tommy Hilfiger "To Tommy from Zooey" line lately on her show "New Girl," and I really like the dress below:

Honestly, the main part I like is the red belt, but apparently it's not even part of the original dress as you can see from the picture below.

I still like the dress, but I don't have much of a torso and this shape of dress really does nothing for me. It was time for me to make a similar dress but to my specifications.

I did my "cut around it" method. For the bodice, I copied a V-neck sweater that I really like. 

For the sleeves, I copied a dress I made a few months ago, but never posted on my blog. I don't actually post everything I make! Hard to believe, I know. . .

These are all the pieces I would use and then sew together.

I sewed the shoulders together first.

Then sewed the sleeves on.

Then, sewed down the side seams of just the bodice.

Added the ribbing to the sleeve cuffs.

Added ribbing to the collar. (This was tricky to get it to V nicely.)

Then, sewed the waistband onto the bodice. If you notice, I reinforced the waistband with pink ribbing on the inside of the red.

For the skirt, I cut one long piece and sewed the two sides together.

Normally, you would baste the entire skirt portion, but instead, I skipped that step and just stretched and sewed the elastic directly onto the top of the skirt. Also, I learned a trick from the fashion design course I'm taking: To make sure your elastic stays under the needle, pull it up through the foot at the beginning. Great trick!

The skirt.

Then I sewed the bodice waistband to the skirt. Actually, I sewed over the elastic band again doing this. This assures the waistband will stay put and reinforces that area.

Then, I hemmed my skirt. I don't know if you can tell, but when I fold the hem under to the wrong side, I pin on the opposite side--the right side. I do this, because I much prefer being able to see where I'm stitching the hem vs. guessing and hoping that it looks okay on the reverse side when I'm done. It's a little tricky the first time or so when you attempt this, but I believe it is well-worth the effort.

I just used a basic straight stitch to hem. I know the fabric is stretchy, but this part of the hem isn't going to stretch since the fabric for the skirt is gathered so much. Also, a straight stitch is lower profile than a stretchy zigzag. Hopefully, from this picture you can see how I'm stitching the hem from the right side. This keeps you from being at the mercy of your feed dogs that like to jam and pucker occasionally.

The finished dress. I didn't like that extra white stripe on the original dress, so that's why I just used red.

I like the cable knit of this fabric. Gives it a classy retro look.

The End!

Refashioning: Shortening a Dress

Okay, Kiddies, so here is another way to alter your garments. This post is a continuation of an on-going process to revise my wardrobe so that 100% of it will look good on me every day. To learn about my journey to find this process, go here.

If you would like to join "Dressing Your Truth" at a discounted rate of $99 (rather than the normal $297) click here.

So, recently, I have joined a group of older ladies who go yard saling on Saturday mornings. It's fun and educational. If you are worried about not being able to spend money on revamping your wardrobe, I highly suggest yard saling. It's even cheaper than the thrift store and you can find much cooler stuff, because people are trying to make a buck off their yard sales, whereas thrift stores carry the clothes people throw out. Anyways, I found this super cute bright red dress at a church yard sale for $2.00. It is lightweight polyester. Notice how the bright red clashes with the colors in the mess of clothes behind it. That stack was part of my purging process (most of them being sold on eBay or given away). . .This dress was cute, but way too long--like mid-calf. Therefore, I cut off about 7 inches.

I had a friend ask me one time what the "surger stitch" was on a regular sewing machine. I don't know if it's called a "surger stitch" or not, but when I use that term, I mean the stitch on the left of the red dot below.

I used that stitch to keep the cut edge of the dress from fraying. (This is a faster alternative to double folding a hem which takes forever because you have to fold, press...fold, press. No thanks.)

Then, I folded the dress up on the wrong side measuring with two fingers and pinned it.

Then I hand-stitched an invisible hemming stitch in red thread. I could have done this much faster on the machine, but. . .I didn't.

As the last step, I pressed the hem just to make I flat, but you don't have to if the fabric lies flat. This whole process took about 10 minutes.

The End!