When I put this dress on, I was immediately reminded of my beloved and bizarre high school mascot.
Unfortunately, I was unable to find any pictures of Big Blue. I even emailed my old high school, and was told Big Blue no longer existed and that there were no pictures. Really? None? What’s going on here, RCHS? Sounds like a cover-up to me! Luckily, through the magic of Microsoft Paint, I am able to recreate him for you.
Anywho…it was time to make this blue blob wearable. First, I removed the shoulder pads, which were both sewn and velcroed in!
Then, I trimmed off some of the length from the bottom of the dress, as well as the sleeves.
I decided to leave the edges raw. The fabric was a soft polyester/cotton blend that wasn’t going to fray, and I thought hemming this dress would make it look fussy, rather than fun and flowy…and fussy is definitely not part of my MO.
Still, the dress was too big for me, so I turned it inside-out, and pinned it on the sides, taking it in about 2″ on each side.
Next, I ran each side through my machine!
Here’s the view from the other side of my machine. To give you an idea of how much I’m taking in/what it looks like at this point, I left my white thread in my machine.
Once I took in both sides, I trimmed off the excess fabric.
Then, I cut a piece of fabric from the cut off portion from the bottom of the skirt to use as a sash. I decided not to leave the edges raw, so it went with the hem and the sleeves where I did the same. How’d it turn out, you ask?
I paired my new dress with one of my favorite cardis…another dollar find.
I was fairly pleased with this one. I was feeling easy and breezy all day long! 🙂
Cheers!
this one is oh so cute!
The blue contrasts nicely with that pretty yellow cardi! I love how flowy and fun it is… And it really brings out your eyes!
HUGE improvement! And wow, velcro’d AND stitched in shoulder pads? Talk about overkill!
Usually I’m a stickler for finished hems, but I wanted this dress to be free to flow. Any hemmage would’ve prevented that…although I like Lindsay’s suggestion of adding a second strip of material to the bottom. I’ll have to remember that for a future refashion. 🙂
And yes…Big Blue was kind of awesome, and I’m sad he’s been retired. 🙁
I love Big Blue but you are way cuter in the formerly big, now right-sized blue dress! Blue + yellow = beautiful combo.
Raw edges are fine – a poor hem can be un-cute.
I love what you did to re-hab that dress!
Personally, I really like the un-hemmed look. It looks cohesive because the sleeves, skirt, and sash all are just cut edges.
Hmm that hem would be problematic. It looks fine unhemmed, from what I can see! i guess if you really wanted to work on finishing the edge you could layer another unhemmed strip of fabric just peeking out under the edge to that it was clearly *meant* to be left alone.
P.S. Gimme that cardi! 🙂