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!

Make Your Own Pair of Shoes - Criss-cross Kimono/Grunge Style

I know this is a weird post...because...who makes shoes? But, I've been watching YouTube videos and scouring Pinterest for tips and tricks, on and off for about a year now. Last Friday, I woke up and thought, "Today is the day."

I found these adorable booties on Pinterest and decided they were weird, yet sleek enough for a design to figure out. I liked that they were booties and not just shoes.

Okay, so that was a lot of pictures just now, and you get the idea on how to make baby booties really well from those pictures, but. . .adult shoes are a little more detailed.

First, I had to make a pattern. I used a pair of suede "desert boots" that I bought in Rome.

I traced the sole first.

Then, I wrapped the paper around the shoe and came up with this shape for the outer part.

This is what it looks like all wrapped up. I marked the halves of the outer pattern "Inside" and "Outside" so I wouldn't get confused about which side was which.

Then, I traced around the sole pattern, but added a little bit extra for seam allowance--about 1/4 of an inch.

Okay, skipping ahead a bit. I needed some sturdy fabric for the inner lining which is the corduroy plaid you see below. However, just leather and lining wasn't stiff enough, so I actually cut out more pieces of a stiff cream colored fabric to go between the lining and the outer parts. Also, see that orange? That is plastic canvas, and I cut out some sole parts because I didn't want my shoes to flop off my feet. You really take for granted all the construction and inner technology of the shoes you wear. 

Okay, one last comment about all these pieces. This part--cutting and patterning--took about 80% of the total time (and this project took ALL DAY), because I had to keep trimming and trimming everything down until I was happy with it. Even though I used shoes that fit me as a pattern, there were still parts of my pattern that needed tweaking, and that took FOR FLIPPING EVER!!! Now that I have a usable pattern, though, I could duplicate it fairly easily...but I would NEVER make these to sell because there is way too much tailor work involved.

Okay, so to keep everything together as much as possible, I used Elmer's spray adhesive to stick all the pieces together. It has a very temporary hold for fabrics like these, but that was okay because I just needed the pieces to keep from shifting too much as I sewed.

Here, I have sewn the heel portions of the outer pieces. You can see the fronts and the backs.

All right. Here is a step you might not think of, but it makes all the difference in the world if you want your shoes to stay on your feet. You have to make some inner heel reinforcements. I made mine out of plastic canvas. I stitched up those slits to give the pieces some roundedness for the back of the heels.

Here you can see the stitched up reinforcements sewn into the red lining

Then, I sewed the linings to the outer parts around the top seams only.

To make sure the top seams stayed flat, I hammered them. (This is the part that made me feel like a for real cobbler.) I also spray adhered the linings to the outer parts so that they wouldn't shift when I sewed them to the soles.

Then, I spray adhered the soles together. (Notice that the plastic canvas is slightly smaller than the leather and lining. This is for ease of turning right side out. If you like having your seam on the outside, you don't need to worry about making your plastic canvas smaller.)

Okay, you are not supposed to pin leather because pins poke holes and perforate the leather, which weakens it. However. . .I did, and. . .oh well. They are fine and pinning them worked quite well. So there. You can start to imagine what the shoes will look like here.

Okay, if you like the seam on the outside (same as the baby booties), then you are done at this point. I am not a fan of outer seams, though, so I turned mine right side out. You are also supposed to hand sew leather, but. . .I used my machine. I have a Husqvarna Viking and, while it's not industrial or anything, it's awesome. If you have a Brother or Singer, you are going to break your machine. Sorry.

Here is an almost finished shoe.

I am actually super proud of how symmetrical they turned out. Almost a perfect mirror image!

Okay, so if you just want to make slippers, you are done. However, I wanted actual shoes, so I traced around the bottoms of both of the shoes and cut soles out of this "anti-skid mat" I had bought off eBay. It's only 1/8 of an inch thick, but it's pretty dense rubber.

All right. So at this point, I went outside because I was using cement glue and it stinks to high heaven. I should have used a face mask, but I just wanted to finish them, so I did this step as fast as possible. Follow the directions on the cement bottle for yours. My bottle said to paint the glue onto all surfaces and then wait 15 minutes before adhering them. 

I wanted to make heels, so I did. I attached them the same way.

After I waited about 24 hours, I cut off the excess rubber soles and then added a plaid skirt pin to both of them. I might take them off some day, but I kinda like this 90s look right now, so. . .

Not bad for my first shoes ever!

The End!