The moment my eyes met this glorious romper, I knew I had to have it. I didn't even second guess myself OR try to envision how I would end up refashioning it. I just knew it would work. And the bright yellow buttons made me happy. I was double happy when I saw that it was only $1. (I know, I couldn't believe it either! lol)
The first image I got in my head when I saw this was Angela Bower from "Who's The Boss". The second image I got in my head was a pregnant woman from 1990 and I thought "WHO in their right mind would wear something so ridiculous?!" So I knew I couldn't just leave this as a romper. It had to be made into a cute summer dress. When I put it on to take the before picture, I must admit, I kicked around the idea of keeping it exactly the way I bought it. It was just so comfortable. Then I realized why someone would wear this. (But I'm still not sure why anyone would wear it in public.)
The first thing I did to this was rip out the bow pockets and the cuffs on the legs. Those came off easily. Then I had to take out the seams in the crotch and legs. Once that was finished, I had to lay it together and pin it together to form a dress. This took a little more time than taking off the pockets. For some reason the construction of any article of clothing with legs...be it pants or shorts...boggles my mind. Making them or taking them apart, it doesn't matter. (see my blog entitled The Point Of This to read about "the great boxer short incident of 1996").
Once I pinned it in the form of a dress, I cut the bottom straight across to the length I needed. Then I started sewing. I sewed the front and back seams to make the dress and then hemmed the dress. Once I tried it on, it was frumpy. Really frumpy. I decided to put darts in to make it more fitted. I made huge darts and I liked the way they looked and made the dress have a little more definition, but the dress was still frumpy in my opinion. I decided to leave it that way however, because it was super comfortable.
I wanted to add a cardigan to "dress it up" a little. During the goodwill shopping trip when I purchased this beauty, I also picked out a long sleeved coral ribbed t-shirt to make into a cardigan. I knew I wanted ruffles on the front, so I found another long sleeved tshirt in (almost) the exact same color.
The first thing I did was cut straight down the front of the ribbed t-shirt. I then folded down the neckline just a little so it formed a rounded v-neck and sewed that in place. Next I cut strips out of the other tshirt. 2 strips that were 2.5 inches wide and 2 strips that were 1.75 inches wide. I placed one of the smaller strips on top of one of the wider strips. I set my sewing machine stitch to 5 (the biggest stitch length) and my tension to 5. I sewed the strips straight down the middle to form a ruffle. I then pinned the ruffle into place on the ribbed tshirt and sewed over the stitches I made to form the ruffle. (I made sure to change my sewing machine settings back to normal first.) I did the same thing with the other strips of fabric and I was finished. Easy Peasy. =)
On a side note, I really think a yellow cardigan and yellow shoes would have been better with this dress. But goodwill didn't have any yellow shirts I liked and I don't have any yellow shoes. So I had to settle with what I could find. But all in all, I think it looks pretty darn good for only having spent $3. =) (That doesn't include the shoes. I've had those since 2006 and I paid $19.95 for those at Payless.)
***If you have some time, swing by my zibbet shop and take a look around!***
http://www.zibbet.com/TheRufflyBuffalo
Thanks! =D
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