Lemongrass Dress

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Happy Monday Everybody! I did a few refashions over the weekend, so I’m just gonna hop right to sharing one of them with you, rather than doing the standard Q&A. I hope this is alright! 🙂

I began with this cool cotton number:

Cool as in lightweight.

Oh geez…where do I begin? The length is horrible, and I hate the color. It’s also just a bit too big for me.

Last week, I put a synthetic dress in a yellow dye bath. It wasn’t alone!

Remember me?

bathing buddies!

Hopefully you all remember your elementary school art class where you learned that yellow and blue make green. In this case a VERY bright green! 🙂

One my dress was dyed and dried, I started taking it in from the back.

Looks like a fin, doesn’t it?

I ran the back through my machine…

Whirrrr!

…then I chopped off a good bit of that ooglay length!

Chop!

A quick hem job followed!

No raw edges up in here!

I removed a couple ‘o bits from the sides of the dress, as I knew I’d want to style this dress with a belt.

Snip!

Later!

Now that dress is done, and ready for a fun cookout with friends! 🙂

Ta-Da!

I have to say, one of my hosts is a pretty flippin’ awesome chef/food blogger. You can check out his blog, How To: Spend A Life, right here!

Seriously. This dude can cook!

His girlfriend helped out a good bit, too. 🙂

Hey Jen!

The food was delish!

Eggplant sliders!

Slawsome! 🙂

Mmmmmac ‘n Cheese! 🙂

‘Ello!

Hi there!

Puppy! 🙂

Isn’t it though?

Cheers!

Good times, to be sure!

Cheers!

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40 Responses to Lemongrass Dress

Hi Refashionista: The link to your friend’s How To blog did not work, what is the website address?

Oh noes! FIXING!

How does the seam come out on the collar when you take it in from the back? I attempted to take in a blazer from the back and probably made it more complicated than I needed to.

I actually taper it up to the collar so I don’t have to deal with that. But that doesn’t always work. What you CAN do is make a panel that you then sew over the ugly seam to cover it. That does the trick.

CUTE!!!

Love, love, love following your blog! I always look forward to it and your projects and postings always bring a smile to my face! Someday I’ll have time to sew again. Thank you for the inspiration!

You guys get Summer Solstice out there!?

Yep! We have to go to liquor stores to get it, but we sure do!

Cute! From your final picture it looks like the dye job was not even, however I like the color blocking effect. Is this what happened or is the picture lighting off?

In the close up it seems to be made up of different fabrics, maybe thats why…love the result!!

There are a couple of corduroy patches on the top of the dress. I should have explained that one. 🙂

Your amazing. I wish I knew how so sew.

Heeeey…you can learn! 🙂

I absolutely ADORE your blog! While I was pregnant I went on a big organic kick. I never even thought about how I could be Eco- friendly with my clothes. You have inspired me to go out and buy a sewing machine and start refashioning 🙂

Very cute, and I love the colour!

You saved that poor dress lol It’s really cute! I’d love to see how the back turned out.

This is super cute!
Zhenya
http://beingzhenya.com

i love it! I really like the color too! I hope I can find a similar type dress to refashion for myself 🙂 I think this refashion I could pull off!

I love it! It looks so good on you 🙂

I think it’s great, like all the refashes you do! <3

From sister-wife to suh-weeeet!

Hahaha! Made me giggle!

Oh you saved that dull, bizarre dress!!! Thanks to you, I’ve got a few items in a dye bath right now – would never have attempted it without your inspiration!

Really cute dress! I love your dresses and how you show us how to put them together :). Have you ever thought of/ know anyone who was able to make a good button-up shirt makeover? I have a problem with gapping in most button-downs, so I go a size bigger but I have a small waist and want to have a more fitted look sometimes. I’d love to see more tutorials and inspiration on anything that you make, your dye jobs and blocking posts have helped already!

Oh and I spent two hours looking through your blog last night. Thank you for starting this. It is such an inspiration.

I love this color of this dress. Awesome refashion!!!

Oh my gosh…that “before” picture is…somethin’ else… 🙂

The only problem I’ve noticed about dying cotton these days is that invariably it is sewn with Polyester thread or some variant of a synthetic blend. I put a tired-looking cotton top with a pretty broderie anglaise section into a gorgeous bright pink dye bath to liven it up, but when I took it out and rinsed it, the thread was still white! It looks loads better now though so I don’t mind so much but it looks as though your refash has the same situation – undyable thread. I’ve started to dye strategically – if I know the thread won’t dye, I’ll choose a complimentary dye colour – either contrasting or darker shade to make a statement. It’s working quite well for me. Was that the plan here?

Is it terrible that I quite liked the ‘before’ picture? – I kinda guessed where you were going with it (I’ve been lurking a long time and I can kinda see your preferred style) but when I saw the length I immediately though ‘Maxi-skirt’. I thought: Stitch up the button placket but leave a small split, remove the buttons (if pos), turn it around so that placket is a back seam, gather and stitch to an elastic waistband – light cotton maxi skirt win. That was my first thought. Then maybe make a cute short jackety-thing with the top part. But then I am quite into maxi skirts but being fairly tall I struggle to get them long enough – they end up flapping about my ankles :-S

I liked the possibilities for the large expanse of skirt fabric too – all sorts of fun dye techniques – batik, dip-dye, Ombre etc. It seems a shame to waste the opportunity to play with those ideas – it’s rare that we see such a ‘blank canvas’.

Oh man…why did you have to say this. Now I wish I had gone maxi skirt! I’ll be sure to think of that when I look at long dresses in the future! But I seriously think you’re right, and that would have been a better direction! :/

You are amazing! I like the fact that you have lately started putting the before and after pictures next to each other. I wanted to ask you to do that!

I really love your work!

Fabulous and the colour of spring!

I love the fact the dress looks very slightly two-tone (pockets versus sleeves) – looks great!

That was one ugly dress when you started, way too long for the style. Great idea to shorten it up! I finally decided to dye two pair of capris that I’d been thinking about for a while last week, so glad I did, thanks for the “incentive”!

LOVE the colour! It is so spring!

So Cute! Can’t wait to see what you do with the blue prom dress on the rack behind you!

Tee hee! I have a gala to volunteer at next month…methinks it’ll be making an appearance! 🙂

lurrve it!! x

Love the COLOR!….. like this refash

I love this dress. The color is great!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/shescraftyktd

I just have to say that grilled eggplant is an amazing substance in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I like the bright green color of the new dress, too!

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Lemongrass Dress | ReFashionista