Refashioning: Turning a Dated Silk Dress into Modern Separates

I love this one.

I found this bizarre 100% silk dress at Good will. So much going on! Yet. . .It had great potential. Especially because of what modern designers are doing on the runways these days.

A note: It is actually a bold green and black in real life. My camera hates green.

So, this is the silhouette I saw in my head when I saw the dress, and I knew the dress had potential. (This outfit is Fendi.)

Here are some of those crazy modern patterns I was talking about. (These are Tom Ford.)

This one is from Pinterest, and I don't know the designer, but. . .let's be honest. They are all doing this sort of thing right now.

Back to the dress at hand. I loved the color. I loved the crazy pattern, and I loved the placement of the pattern with the florals at the extreme ends of the garment. Shoulder detail has been really big for about the past seven years and continues to be a "thing," so I knew this project was going to work.

Something else cool about the dress is if you look at the fabric in certain light, you can see that the fabric is actually a jacquard with satin polka dots embedded in the weave. So 60's throw back!

I found a shirt that I sort of wanted to copy as far as length and sizing and threw it on top to see what I had to work with.

I cut the weird mermaid skirt off.

I folded the top hem over twice and, using a seam gauge (my new favorite thing), I ironed the hem to make a casing.

Here I have pinned the casing.

Sewing from the right side, I stitched in the ditch all around, leaving space between these two pins in the middle back.

Into the opening, I inserted elastic with a safety pin on the end. (I actually bought two bodkins off eBay, but couldn't find either one! Man. . .I wanted to be so official too. Oh well. Safety pins work!)

Making sure the elastic lay flat, I stitched it together.

To distinguish the middle back (in lieu of a tag), I sewed a little ribbon bow.

The skirt: Done!

Now for the top.

The first step was to seam rip out the zipper.

Then, I pinned up the middle back seam and stitched it.

I left a keyhole at the top of the middle back so I would be able to get the shirt up over my head. I also sewed in a little hook and eye clasp.

I cut the sleeves off, folded the top in half, pinned the side and shoulder seams together, and smoothed out the wrinkles.

Using the other shirt as a guide. . .well. . .you know.

I stitched up the side seams (with a straight stitch and then going back over the sides with a zig zag), stitched the arms closed, and then sewed the sleeves to the bodice.

To hem the top, I double folded the hem at the bottom (making sure that the back hung just a tad lower than the front). . .

. . .and the bottom of each sleeve.

Okay, time for a rant. 

I love my Husqvarna. Everyone who knows I sew, knows I love my sewing machine. 

However:

Whoever designed the blind stitching capabilities of this machine. . .

Should be shot.

It's totally backwards from what it should be. See how I had to shove the entire garment up into the inside of the machine in order to do sew the blind stitch??? Also, I had to pin the garment backwards too, which is really annoying.

I'm sure there's some kind of "good reason" for this, but. . .

It's stupid.

End of rant.

The finished shirt! Yay!

Okay, do you notice how the shirt gently nips in at the waist? There are no darts, and the side seams are actually pretty straight. Wanna know how I did it?

If you look closely, you can see that the back seam is curved slightly.

This is easier to see when the shirt is inside out. You can see I'm pointing at the part of the seam that dips in. That part lies against the small of the back.

And here is a close up. Taking a shirt in from the middle back seam, rather than the side seams, looks so much more professional and so much less "amateur hour."

Here is the skirt. I ironed it for you.

And the completed outfit! So modern and cute!

And because we all love before and afters, here it is:

The End!

Making Leather Jewelry - Necklace and Earrings

I've been addicted to "leather jewelry" lists on Pinterest, and a friend had a birthday recently, so I thought I'd try my hand at making some.

So. . .like some of my projects, I forget to photographically document until I'm already well into the project, so. . .let me catch you up.

I used my dressform as a scale model for drafting a paper pattern.

So. . .this is where there are pictures missing. I traced the pattern onto leather using disappearing ink (which. . .a word about disappearing ink: It disappears REALLY quickly! So make sure you don't use it and then go get something to drink, because it WILL be gone!) 

Then, I cut it out with scissors, and then I cut the fringe part with a rotary cutter and a ruler. (You can see I'd already finished the fringe in the picture below, but this was my attempt at going backwards and photo documenting. You're welcome.)

This picture is when I actually realized I needed to take pictures, so I'm trying to give you the basic idea with this picture.

I cut a reinforcement piece for the top of the necklace and then glued it on.

1. 

2.

3.

While that was drying, I started on the earrings.

Those little strips are reinforcement pieces I glued to the tops.

See?

Back to the necklace. I gathered some jewelry pieces to use to attach the necklace together.

Using a leather punch, I punched two holes at the top of the necklace.

And magically, I have already attached the hardware! (This took a lot longer than it seems.)

Then, as further embellishment, I took a flower. . .

 . . .and sewed a safety pin to the back of it.

Then, I attached the flower to the necklace. I used a safety pin in case my friend didn't want to have a flower on the necklace. . .and she can use the flower by itself as well.

Then, I punched two holes at the tops of both earrings.

The hardware for the earrings.

A finished earring.

The finished set.

And without the flower attached.

(Don't you wish you were nicer to me so I would make you these things too? Ha!)

The back. (It's adjustable.)

And I even made the bag (out of a perfume ad in a magazine)!

I'm so crafty!

The End!