This was an exciting day. For today I was taking off work early to do something I had never done, even in my 6 year stint at USC. No…I wasn’t going to dance naked at a frat party while singing Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” (I said something I had never done, remember?) Oh no. I had never, ever, in my life, tailgated for any football game. Ever. It was time.

But first, I had to figure out what to wear. I decided on this icky number for its Garnet hue. Gotta show some school spirit to cheer on those Cocks. Yep. Cocks. Our mascot is a Cock. A fighting gamecock, to be precise.

The color was right, but everything else about this huge dress was wrong. Time to get to work! This dress consists of 2 pieces. The sheer part you see and a solid maroon slip. First off, I hacked of the bottom of the sheer part.

Next, I shortened the sleeves.

Then I hemmed the bottom and the sleeves to get rid of those raw edges.

Next, I needed to shorten the slip. I decided to let it show from under the skirt to break up the whole polka-dot thing a bit.

The straps on the slip were looooong as can be and needed to be shortened. I snipped the straps shorter, and into the machine they went!
I hemmed the raw edge around the bottom, and was done!
I know what you’re thinking…”Isn’t she gonna take that in? It’s huge on her!” Nope. All I had to do was use the ties built in on the sides, wrapping it around me a couple of times and making them look more like a sash. I was ready to tailgate!

I even used the leftovers from the slip to make a matching band for my fedora!
Soooo…how was it? AWESOME!!!! I don’t know WHY I had such a stick up my ass about tailgating/tailgaters in general! Of course, it doesn’t hurt that I was in excellent company with the coolest refs in Columbia Roller Derby…





I am now a tailgating convert!





Oh yeah…and the Gamecocks won against whoever it was they were playing. 🙂