Hey all! It’s me again! I hope you’re all having fabulous summers and that you all have a friend with a pool. 😉
I was suuuuuper excited to discover this polyester dress with an amazing floral print in a recent thrifting venture!
Can we all let out a collective “Yikes!” for that ruffly collar?
With such a busy print, it doesn’t quite fit, does it? And those ruffle-bottomed sleeves weren’t going to cut it in 100-degree SC weather. It’s also waaay too long for my short lil self.
Let the removal of extremities begin! First, I picked off the sleeves with my seam ripper.
Then, I cut off the ruffly collar, leaving about 1/2 an inch or so behind.
This left me with these guys:
I got to work pinning those raw edges under/stitching them down.
First, the arm holes…
Then, the neck hole!
Do you see why I didn’t use my seam ripper to remove the ruffly bit now? By leaving enough left over to fold down on the inside, my neckline would look just fine.
Since the fabric of this dress is of a non-fraying variety, this trick works. Of course, the inside isn’t as pretty as it could be, but nobody gots to know that, amirite? 😉
I wasn’t happy with how the top of my new dress fit me, so I took it in just a smidge.
I cut off that extra material from the sides, then trimmed a bit off the bottom.
Once again, this fabric won’t fray, so I didn’t mess with hemming the bottom.
For my final trick, I grabbed those sleeves and cut off the rounded shoulder bits.
I stitched the sleeves together, and had an instant sash with nice ruffly details on the ends! 🙂
I must admit, I’m pretty thrilled with this one, guys.
Seriously…I think this dress looks like it stepped out of an Anthropologie store, but instead of costing $100+, it was just $1! 🙂
I wore my new frock to Trustus Theatre to review their new production of Dreamgirls!
Trustus’ Excecutive Director, Larry Hembree couldn’t resist a quick photo op!
Erin and I had a great evening!
Cheers!
