Putting out holiday content after the holiday has passed is a blogging no-no.
If the whole point of your blog post is to share a project that’s pretty much only relevant one time per year, you should share it before the holiday so folks have time to actually do it.
Therefore, sharing a St. Patrick’s Day refashion days after St. Patrick’s Day is pretty dumb, huh?
But that’s exactly what I’m doing today! Best practices be darned. We go our own way here at Refashionista (who is this “we” I’m referring to…it’s just me here…)!
Let us balk at said no-nos and indulge in a St. Patrick’s Day dress refashion, shall we?
(We shall.)
When I scored this very very comfy Soma nightgown for $1 at the thrift store, I knew I wouldn’t be leaving it as-is.
It’s so so comfy, you guys. I cannot begin to describe the soft comfiness of this nightgown. I’m even going to say comfy one more time. Comfy.
However, I’m not much of a nightgown person. I’m more of a comfy PJ pants and old T-shirt kind of gal.
But wait…what if I could turn this nightgown into a dress that has all the comforts of a nightgown but could actually be worn in public without shame?
I haven’t done a no-sew refashion in a hot minute so I decided to make sure this refashion didn’t have to so much as touch my sewing machine.
First, I dyed my nightgown.
Okay…I’m not sure how this happened, but when I perused my sizable dye stash, I discovered I had no green dye.
Since I was feeling festive for St. Patrick’s Day (a recent DNA test revealed I’m half Irish…among other surprises), I employed a little dye mixology.
As anybody who’s ever used a ziplock bag knows, yellow and blue make green. Since teal is a mix of blue and green, I figured this color combo would be a safe bet.
I mixed roughly 2/3 teal dye with 1/3 yellow dye and used a bit of a paper towel to check the hue.
Then, following the instructions on the back of the bottle, I set up a dye bath in my metal pot (that I only use for dye projects).
My nightgown was 60% cotton, so I was pretty confident it would take enough of the dye to achieve a festive green.
I let my nightgown hang out in its dye bath, stirring it periodically, for about 40 minutes. Then, I rinsed it in my washing machine and dried it.
I was happy with the hue, but still needed to de-nightgownify it to take it from sleepwear to streetwear!
I cut off part of each sleeve, right above that telltale satin cording.
Since the cotton content of this dress was so high, I didn’t have to worry about the raw edge fraying. I just tugged at it and it curled nicely.
Then, I put my nightgown on and pinned it where I wanted it to fall.
I cut the fabric from below that point.
Next, I made another cut across that bottom scrap.
That bottom bit is about to become a mini sash for my waist. All I had to do was tug at it (much like the sleeve) so it would curl.
I tied my lil sash around the waist of my new dress and was ready to head out the door!
As you can see, I went all out with head-to-toe green! No, I don’t have a pinching phobia. I think it’s nice to costume it up a bit, especially when there have been so very few occasions to do so!
Want to see even more green dye refashions? Here ya go!
- Remember that time I dyed a paisley printed dress green?
- Here’s a brown and green dip dye dress refashion!
- You might like how I dyed a boring white dress a pretty shade of apple green.
My new dress is just as comfy as it was in its original nightgown form.
If you look closely, you can see I’m even wearing green eyeshadow!
I wore my new dress to Weco Biergarten to meet up with my lovely friend (and fellow Pisces), Karen for her birthday!
Prezzies were gifted and booze was consumed.
Mr. Refashionista joined us as well.
Don’t worry. He had a great time too.
Here’s hoping next year’s St. Patrick’s Day will be one we all get to gather for and enjoy together!
Cheers!
