“Fun Little Day” Dress
So…I showed you how I refashed that LBD for Good Morning America yesterday, but what about that purple dress on the right?
How’d I do it?
I mean, how do you go from this…
Harumph.
…to this?
Huzzah!
This was a tricky one, folks! First, I dyed the original top to get rid of that blah faded brown and white…
A fun color combo!
It’s all in the mix!
…then I noticed all these little holes on the sides. :/
Why?!?!!!!
This is where all my photographic evidence falls off, you guys.
I can explain! It was about 2am when I was working on this, and I had to try to get a couple of hours of sleep before going in to work the next day then dashing off to catch my flight!
Still…I’m sorry. :/
The best way I know how to explain what I did was:
1. I removed that fake underlayer
2. I took the whole thing in from the sides.
3. I took it in again from the back to raise the neck line a smidge
4. I added the fabric from the sides to the bottom of the dress, patching some holes and re stitching around others (cutting off the parts with holes and stitching the good bits back together, then stitching THAT to the bottom).
5. I gave this craziness a new hem.
6. Then I took the sleeves up a lil.
And that’s what brought us to this!
Ta-Da!
My new purple frock had a blast for my last day in NYC! Erin and I checked out the MoMA, had a fantastic lunch at Grammercy Tavern (an entire page of their menu is dedicated to ciders!), and had a lovely time exploring the city before we caught our flight back home.
Lookie! We found a tasty frozen sangria stand!
Times Square Selfie!
What a fun trip! 🙂
Cheers!
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Tags: Good Morning America, rit dye, Year 5
How do u come up with these designs. So neat
How wonderful that your dear friend Erin was along to see all this awesomeness taking place! I have done a similar thing with a fave dress that is very fine silk and developed all kinds of shreddedness. Cut off off the bad bits and restiched the good bits onto the bottom. Very well done, I like this one a lot – and the sunglasses are very cool!
You are utterly refreshing and your blog is a sheer delight…..Just wonderful…I enjoy so much….
I really love this make-over! Great job!
Thats so adorable!
XO Ellen from Ask Away Advice & Fashion Blog
http://www.askawayblog.com
YOU DID AN AWESOME JOB ON GMA! WAY TO GO!
Holy s—. How do you think this stuff up? As I read your post, I had a hard time believing is was the same dress! Next time you head to NY, let me know, I want to shop with you. Maybe you should offer a class/weekend where you can guide a group through a series of makeovers. In the meantime, how about a post on shopping tips? What do you look for in a garment?
You have really inspired me! I dyed three old dresses the other day (two were navy and white. I dyed one tangerine, the other kelly green. The other was mostly white with big weird dark red pineapple type print. I dyed it a pale mint green by leaving it in kelly green dye for only a few minutes). I also remade an 80′s style dress by removing the horrible sleeves, shoulder pads, taking in the sides and changing the neckline. (Sound familiar?) All were much improved! Thanks to you!! And I am just getting started…:)Thanks!!!
BYW, you were great on TV. You didn’t look nervous at all, amazing!
Rit Bad. Procion GOOD!! You’ll get much better, brighter, truer colors that never bleed or fade if you use fiber reactive dye. It’s pretty cheap too! Awesome dress, love it!!
I’ve never heard of this Procion! I must find it! 🙂
I’ve never heard of Procion either. Thank you jumaz! I nearly bought some dye today. So glad I didn’t!
Jillian, thank you for giving me the confidence to refash some of my clothes. You were great on GMA. Of course, they should have had you on longer.
Yeah!! It’s a little more complicated to use, but SO worth it! I get it from Dharma Trading.
YOU ARE AWESOME !!!!
THANK YOU !!!!! 😉
You are amazing and a god given gift Keep going girl you have talent and a gift that inspires many.
I’ve been behind on my blog reading but SO COOL being on GMA!!! I remember when you were down in the dumps earlier this year and NOW just look at you! How did it happen? Will we hear the whole story? Amazing and awesome – you go girl!
I love all your Ideas, but how wood a “full” figured gal like myself b able to this? 🙁 you say you get stuff bigger to cut down, but kind of hard to find much of anything to cut down for me….
The good thing about having the body of a 12 year old boy is that, yes, most things I find are bigger than I am. Of course there’s drawbacks as well (people think I’m a little kid from far away, etc.), but I digress…
This is a trick that won’t work for every garment or for every person. The reason I tell folks to go up a few sizes, is that it’s just easier to refashion that way. If you have extra fabric to work with, you have more possibilities. If it didn’t have holes all down the sides, it could have just be dyed and lightly refitted to be more flattering as-is as the size it was. OR you could take fabric from ANOTHER garment and add on to it that way. You could even dye another garment at the same time to get them to be in the same color family.
Does that make any sense?
Awesome as always! Love to read about your creations! You are so very talented!!!! Inspiring like crazy!!!!
Great job love your blog!
I’ve been reading your blog for about a year now, and I just wanted to say how much I love it and your re-fashions. Everytime I get one of your emails, I can’t wait to see what you’ve created this time, it’s always so creative. Your blog makes me feel so happy and inspired, you are like a little piece of sunshine! Congratulations on your recent TV success, thanks again for your amazing ideas and keep up the good work 🙂
Holy Hannah – I can just imagine what went through your mind when you found those holes 🙁 What a lot of work but a truly beautiful end result.
I love Erin’s skirt!
I would have totally bypassed that uggo brown dress. Dying things never comes to mind for me but maybe one day I’ll try it. 🙂 Gorgeous as always!
What an amazing transformation! Loved your GMA segment… again, you looked cool as a cucumber! If you were nervous, it didn’t show at all. Keep up the good work!
Such a fun and inspiring blog! And really, it’s not scary at all–if it doesn’t work, you’re out like, what, .99?
I’ve done a little refashioning myself, cutting off the top of a dress to make (surprise!) a skirt:
http://boskybelle.com/2013/11/updating-a-dress-with-scissors-and-dye/
http://boskybelle.com/2013/11/refashioning-a-dress-into-a-skirt/
and I’m a fan of a quick, cheap dye job, too.
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE your sunglasses!!!
Wow. So proud of you. You did such a great job on GMA. I cringed when I saw that wierd brown rag/skull dress. Love what you did to it.
Hi I’m a new member – refashioning from thrift stores is my favorite, favorite, favorite thing to do. Keep the photos coming! Barb
U R Amazing! You never fail to blow my mind with your creative solutions..Wow…just Wow!
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