Wannabe Wednesday: Soft Joie Edition

Whoah!!!!! The blog is DIFFERENT now!!!! What do you think? I thought it was time for a little change. I hope you like it! Oh, and I have good news! My email subscribers that I thought were lost forever are now back! Whew! I’ll be making a few more tweaks here and there on this new design, so just bear with me for a bit if things start looking weird! 🙂

Now…on to Wannabe Wednesday!

I absolutely LOVE this dress by Soft Joie! It’s flowy, soft, and perfect for summer!

I could either buy it for $158 at Bloomingdale’s, OR I could just refashion one for $1!

Which option do you think I chose?

This is a suuuuper-soft chambray dress I thrifted for one mere dollar. It has smocking like the original, but the shape is all wrong and the neckline and armholes aren’t quite right either.

I began this refashion by trimming away some of the fabric from the neck and armholes. When doing this, make sure you leave enough fabric for the raw edges to be turned under twice. You need more than you might think!

Then, I pinned the raw edges under.

I used a zigzag stitch to sew all of this down. The reason for this is so the arm holes and neck won’t warp from being stretched out. The zigzag stitch provides a little give.

Alright! So the neckline was looking like the original, but the dress was still too big for me. I put it on my dress form and started taking it in!

This meant no more pockets. 🙁 But I’m actually okay with that, as these pockets pretty much ruined the lines of the dress and made me look super-hippy. 🙂

I moved on with my work, accepting the loss.

I ironed my new dress, and headed off to a fun dinner/movie night with friends! I have to say…I think my dress is almost identical to its far more expensive counterpart! 🙂