Hey. Whatsup?
Well hello there! Douglas here! Mom is on a fun trip with her friends out of the country right now, and she’s left me in charge of her blog while she’s gone!
I’m really hoping Jillie gets her groove back from this vacation. She’s been kind of a hermit and I’m glad to finally have some space. Sometimes a dog just needs some time alone to work on his novel and sniff himself, ya know?
Anyways, Mom asked me to pick some of my favorite Reader ReFashes to share with you this week. We negotiated payment (in the form of treats), and I agreed.
The first one I’m going to share with you is actually a Re-ReFashion.
Meet Eileen and her elephant skirt!
Why so glum, Eileen?
Now, I think this skirt is just fine. But I run around totally naked, so what do I know?
Here’s what Eileen had to say about it:
It’s comfy and a nice length but really, really hard to find tops to pair with it. I have both mustard yellow and navy tights that look quite adorable with it but have never been able to find the right top. And so it sits, languishing in my wardrobe, tiny little elephant eyes forlornly begging to see the light.
Truth be told though, this skirt is actually already a refashion of a dress I bought a couple years ago that was just nowhere near fitting around my bust. But those darn elephants implored “You can find something to make with us!”. Here’s the original dress from
ModCloth;
We implore you!
So I guess I lied. This is really my second refashion and my first refashion of a refashion!
I really wish I had saved some of the fabric from the original dress but I didn’t, so I just had what was sewn into the skirt to work from. Call it a personal quirk, but I consider the ability to cover both my shoulders and my tummy simultaneously a minimum requirement for a shirt – one which this skirt did not currently meet. So I picked up a little bit of navy chiffon from my fabric store (only $3 worth and I’ve got some left over!) to fill the top out a bit. I started by ripping out the zipper that I had so carefully sewn in when I made the skirt, and ripped off the waistband (but saved it).
Pick! Pick! Pick!
I cut the waistband in half lengthways and used my bias tape maker to make a cute little sleeve detail! Et voila! My second refashion, and my first refashion of a refashion!
I dig it!
Wanna see more of Eileen’s fun stuff? Why don’t you just hop on over to her blog, Crafty Little Secret, and find out what this Microbiologist by day/Craftster by night is up to (Geez Mom…why did you major in theatre? Just sayin.)
Great job, Eileen!
I hope you guys all have a great…SQUIRREL!!!!!
When I found this dress by Forever 21 at one of my fave thrift shops, I was reminded that I’m an entire decade older than their target demographic. Yikes.
This is what I look like first thing in the morning.
Other than being shoddily constructed by an evil fast fashion giant (end of rant), this dress had a couple of other issues as well. It was about a size too big for me, it was really faded (hard to see in the pic), and it had a damaged zipper.
I’m starting to see why someone let this one go. :/
I decided to take care of that fading first. I grabbed a box of black dye…
Azabache!
…then took the dress and started folding it into a pitcher, sprinkling a bit of the dye powder into the folds as I went.
Sprinkle Sprinkle!
Keep it going!
Once the dress was completely wadded into the pitcher, I filled it with hot water.
Hawt.
When it was filled, it looked like this:
Kind of gross looking, actually.
I left the dress submerged for about 2 hours, then gave it a thorough rinse in my washing machine.
Okay…so the faded color was taken care of, but it still needed a bit of fitting.
Pin each side!
Then, Whirrrrrrr! :)
After a quick press, my dress was ready!
Well…almost ready.
I still hadn’t fixed that zipper, and was running late to meet a friend for dinner. :/
So I did what any self-respecting refashionista would do and just used a pair of pliers to get zipped up!
I promise to go back and replace it later.
My friend managed to take a few really blurry photos of the “after”. ;)
This is not an Instagram filter.
But I snapped a couple of backups at home. No worries. ;)
Sassy, no?
It continues to be a good bit chilly here in SC, so I immersed myself in a massive cardigan!
My absolute favorite sweater in the world! :)
Hope you guys have a great weekend!
Cheers!
I love ModCloth! I rarely order anything from them (I think I ordered a pair of shoes once), but I get tons of refashion inspiration from their lovely vintage-inspired dresses.
Take this gorgeous little number, their Midnight Tide Dress:
That’ll be $52.99
Alhtough I’m not Seated around a beach bonfire in this jersey-knit maxi, singing along to your pal’s guitar strumming as the moon shines above. Blah Blah Blah Blather Blather Blather… as the overly twee description of this frock suggests (I’m not making this up), I still want this dress!
Sadly, all I had was this:
I despise neck tie thingies. :/
Luckily, all this dress needed was a couple of chops and a teensy bit of stitchery!
Sideways Chop!
Neck tie thingy chop!
Just a little whirrrrrrr!
I took the newly sewn-together neck tie thingy sash and tied it around my waist.
This whole refashion took less than 10 minutes!
Check it out!
Do you like it with my boots? :)
It was a bit chilly out, so I layered up with a thin cardigan. :)
Comfy and cozy!
I wore my new frock to a fun & quirky production of Swimming in the Shallows at USC’s Center for Performance Experiment. It’s a terrific play, it’s free of charge, and a man falls in love with a shark! What more could you want?
I hope you’ll see it!
My new dress left me feeling quite celebratory, despite being nowhere near a beach or guitar-strumming companion. ;)
Cheers!
Cheers!
