Refashioning: How to Make a Dickie from a Collared Shirt and Instantly Elevate Your Wardrobe

Sometimes, you buy a shirt when you only actually like the collar. You may hate the rest of it (as I do for the shirt below!)

So, today, we are going to make a dickie!

Dickies are a great way to elevate a regular no-collar shirt or sweater. In the 90s, dickies were mostly just the top part of a turtleneck made to wear under V-neck sweaters without having the added bulk and heat-trapping layers of a full turtleneck.

However, while they were supposed to make life easier, they usually ended up creeping up around the decollate area and making weird wrinkles underneath said sweaters.

Today, dickies are made much more thoughtfully as they have elastic under the armpits to keep them down. (Innovative!!) Also, they aren't just turtlenecks anymore. See the cute one below? I bought it because (1) the dickie was much cheaper than buying the whole shirt, (2) I can mix and match it with not just fall/winter attire, but also spring/summer shirts, (3) I wanted one to study to figure how to make my own!

Using the pre-made dickie as a template, I laid my shirt down underneath it and cut around. If you don't have a pre-made dickie, you can cut from around the seam at the top of the shoulder down to about the top of the chest area--usually down to about the fifth or sixth button. Really, this measurement is up to you and how deep the necklines are of the items under which you will be putting the dickie, so you should probably get your deepest necklined shirt/sweater out and use that as your reference. Wherever that neckline falls, give yourself another inch or two to make sure the dickie doesn't pop out!

For mine, I used binding lace to finish the edges. If you don't have binding you can just leave about 5/8" seam allowance around the extremity when you are cutting your dickie out, then fold the edge in about 1/4" and press, and then fold it in again about 1/4" and press. That was too much work for me, so I bound instead! (Also. . .you really don't HAVE to finish the edges as they will never be seen, so you can skip to the next step if raw edges don't bother you. However, bear in mind that finished edges keep things from falling apart over time. So. . .do as the Spirit leads.)

Here are the edges all finished.

Next, you need to measure about 6-ish inches of elastic for under the arms. Fold the edge of the elastic under about 1/4" and pin it to the wrong side of either side of the dickie to create arm holes.

Then, zig-zag stitch them in place.

The finished arm hole from the right side.

The finished dickie.

Much cuter than the original shirt!

The End!

Make Your Own Ribbon Bulletin Board

This post is nothing new, but maybe it will still give you an idea.

I get three fashion magazines that come to my house. I guess I'm old school and like to see trends and fashion ideas in actual print vs. having a Pinterest board (which. . .yes. . .I have some of those too). Anyways, I used to clip out my favorite ideas and keep them in a 3-ring notebook. Well. . .the main problem with that is that I never look at it! It stays tucked away on its shelf out of sight. That doesn't really help me. I realized that I need something more immediate. I needed a bulletin board.

Before I even started pricing cork boards and push pins, I realized that I had all the materials to make a ribbon bulletin board. Why go out and buy something that I could just make? That's what this post is going to show you: How to make your own ribbon bulletin board.

First of all, I had this old canvas frame that wasn't being used. You don't have to have one covered in canvas. (But let's face it. If you are female and have friends, chances are you have been to one of those group painting classes and you probably have an outcome of that event at home right now that you HATE, so. . .why not repurpose it?) :) It just needs to be made of wood so you can push staples into it--you could probably also use a decent piece of cardboard. I also grabbed a piece of shiny pink table cloth to cover it, but you can use any fabric. (You may remember that I used this same fabric to make a sewing machine cover.)

I laid the fabric down and cut around it leaving about two to three inches around. That would give me just enough to fold up around the frame.

Then I spayed some adhesive to the back of the fabric. You don't have to do this part, but it helps to keep the fabric from slipping as you attach it to the frame.

Then I folded up the edges of the fabric around the frame.

Okay, I would advise you if you do this to use a staple gun or AT LEAST a normal sized stapler. All we have in our house is this tiny Swingline stapler, and. . .it took a while because about only one in five staples actually took!

This is after all the fabric had been stapled up around the frame.

Next I took some ribbon and diagonally stretched it across the frame. I stapled either end to the frame.

After stapling the ribbon to the sides, I pulled and stapled the tail parts around to the back.

And that's basically it. You just keep adding ribbon in rows until you are satisfied with how it looks.

Be sure to go back the other direction.

Almost finished. I'm pretty proud of how good it looks as I didn't measure distances or anything. Not bad for eyeballing and using an almost worthless stapler!

This is the back. You can see I stapled all the ribbon tails to the back.

The last step was to add buttons to each intersection of ribbon. This just keeps the pictures in place that you tuck into the ribbon.

All done!

Well. . .almost.

Now it's on the wall, and I can easily see inspiring ideas. 

(Right now I'm into collars.)

My plan is that once this is filled up, I can take a picture of it and put that into an archive of sorts, take these down, and start a new board. I plan on doing this twice a year or so. Anyways, we'll see. For now, I like being able to see my ideas easily!

And then the obligatory social media question:

What do you/will you use your bulletin board for?

The End!

Chanel Inspired: Black and White Gingham Peter Pan Collar Easter Dress

1. I am taking an online fashion design course.

2. I wanted to make my Easter dress.

3. Black and white gingham is in right now.

4. I have always loved this Chanel dress since it came out in 2012 (I think it was 2012. Whenever I started blogging...)

Skipping ahead about three days of work.  I had two different gingham fabrics so I decided to color block them.

I didn't feel like buying fusible interfacing, so I just interfaced the collar with another piece of the same white fabric. I knew this choice would cause the collar to lose it's shape (especially after washing), so I under-stitched the seam.

One thing about Peter Pan collars is that they like to pull the back side of the neckline forward. To keep this from happening, I stitched a black rectangle right under the collar attaching the interfacing to the front.

Getting the waistband to attach on the diagonal was tricky because woven fabric stretches on the bias. To alleviate this problem, I interfaced it with another piece of gingham that was cut on the cross grain. (You can see this in a picture later.)

The bottom hem. I wanted it to be diagonal too, but I didn't have enough fabric to cut a big enough piece on the diagonal. At least the size of the gingham is different.

I wanted to do that thing where you dart the elbows to allow for the bend in the arm. You see this sort of thing in high-end clothing.

My first time in a long time that I've sewn in an invisible zipper. I realized that I don't even own a zipper foot. I actually used an overcasting foot and it worked pretty well.

See how the pattern matches up? Well, the horizontal lines do anyway.

I interfaced the bodice with white fabric because I knew the skirt would be gathered and the fabric is kind of flimsy, so I didn't want the skirt to pull the top out of shape. In retrospect, I should have interfaced the skirt too, but I will just wear a slip under it. 

(*NOTE* Don't be gross, Ladies! Wear a slip!)

Oh, also about the picture above. From the inside you can see how the interfacing to the waistband is cut on the cross grain (straight vs. diagonal). This helped the front bias-cut piece maintain its shape.

I sewed in at the shoulders and decided not to cut off the portion of the seam that was thickest. This actually acts as a slight shoulder pad when turned right side out.

The End!