Today’s dress started off as a large blob of grapey purple.
Its purple hue reminded me of something tasty from my childhood though.
Ah…Purplesaurus Rex! You ranked a close second behind Pink Swimmingo as my favorite Kool-Aid flavor of all time! Sadly, this Grape-Lemonade flavor is no more. Happily, I can at least salvage this dress in its memory. RIP, Purplesaurus! 🙂
Obviously, it was too big and shapeless for me. I put it on inside-out and marked with safety pins where it would need to be taken in at the bust, waist, and hips. Then I took it off, and used my sewing gauge to make sure I was taking it in equally on both sides, pinning along each side.
You can see how I chose to keep the sleeves big. If I wanted a narrower sleeve, I would have simply pinned those a bit as well. I threaded my machine with purple thread, and ran each side through, following the path of pins.
After each side had been taken in, I trimmed off the excess fabric with my pinking shears (those funky zig-zag scissors that help keep fabric from fraying).
All that was left to do was hack off some of the length. I used my pinking shears for this as well, and then folded the hem over twice to hide the raw edge, pinning the new hem.
I ran the new hem under my machine. My dress was almost ready to wear. All I needed to do was press my new side seams and hem!
That’s it! The transformation was complete! I certainly didn’t have any grape (har har) expectations for this dress, but it ended up looking quite nice! As today was quite chilly, I wore a long-sleeved tee and leggings under my new creation to keep my teeth from chattering.
My boss is a ReFashionista (or would that be ReFashionisto?) too! See the long necklace I’m wearing? He made it out of beads from a damaged handbag! I love it!
Cheers!
