Wedding Gown Refashion (part 1...sneak peek)

This isn't a normal blog post for me. There is not a before and after this time. Well, ok,  there is a before, but the after will be posted much later. This is a sneak peek of my wedding gown refashion.

In late July, my boyfriend and I decided to go to some yard sales. I was super happy because yardsaling is one of my favorite things to do and spending time with my boyfriend is my favorite thing to do. So to combine those two things makes for a perfect day.  Just when I didn't think the day could get better, I spotted a wedding gown from the road at a yard sale. A lace wedding gown.  I didn't want to get my hopes up too high, because I didn't know the price just yet.  However, when we asked, they told us it was $5.  $5?!?!?!?! SOLD!  =)  I knew I could turn this hideous gown into something gorgeous! The lace is gorgeous and there was ALOT of it!  

(Just call me Scarlett O'Hara)




For those of you who don't know me, I'm not engaged. I am however in a long term relationship. Like 7 1/2 years long.  We talk about getting married alot. It just hasn't happened yet.

I've looked at other lace wedding gowns online and they are outrageous! I fell in love with one by Alfred Angelo that cost $1500!  That's nuts. And not gonna happen for me.
Now that I have a dress that only cost $5, I am more determined than EVER to make this dress resemble one of the fancy expensive ones I was looking at. =D 

I will post the before and after eventually after it's finished. (Is it bad luck to post a wedding gown online before you actually wear it???)  But until then, Wish Me Luck! This is the biggest refashion I've ever attempted. =D



***If you have some time, swing by my Zibbet shop and take a look around!***

http://www.zibbet.com/TheRufflyBuffalo

Thanks! =D

The Dress That Almost Wasn't

So it's been almost a month since I've posted a refashion.  However, it's not because I haven't tried.  I must have been in a rut or something, because everytime I tried to sew something, I would majorly mess it up. Or it just wouldn't work the way I wanted and I would get frustrated and give up.  Has that kind of thing happened to anyone else or is it just me? 

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a local consignment shop and found that they had a $1 rack! YAY!  I stocked up! =)  I didn't even care if the clothes were my size because I figured I could make them into something that fit OR make something for my daughters from them.  I spent about $10 in that store. It was great.

Yesterday, I took another shot at trying to refashion and it wasn't turning out how I'd planned. So I put it aside (again).  But today, I thought I'd give it another try and it actually turned out great! It made me feel so good. (Which was just what I needed since I was starting to feel pretty low that nothing I was doing in the past couple of weeks was turning out right.)

Basically what I did with this dress was cut off the top right at the underarms all the way across. I turned the top under a little bit and sewed a seam.  Next I removed the side ties that were sewn into the dress (I used these for the straps.)  I pinned them onto the front and back. That wasn't easy because I did this all by myself and I don't have 4 hands. But somehow it worked. I sewed the pinned down straps to the dress.

I measured the dress for the length I wanted and trimmed the excess off.  I hemmed the dress and used the extra fabric as a sash for the dress.

I realize this is a summer dress, but I think this kind of dress would look super cute with a white cardigan for the fall. =)

I didn't take pictures of this process because, after the luck I've had, I didn't think this dress was gonna happen. Sorry. 

This dress was $1 and those cute white Candie's wedge shoes were only $3. I got them at a yardsale! =) 

***If you have some time, swing by my Zibbet shop and take a look around!***

                                                http://www.zibbet.com/TheRufflyBuffalo



Put A Little Pep In Your Shirt

While thinking about which refashion to do next, I realized I've done mostly dresses. And while I really like dresses, I don't get to go many places to wear them.  So, for this project, I decided to transform a $1 Goodwill dress into a Peplum top. I've seen peplum tops everywhere lately.  Anthropology has them for around $58 each. (yikes!) 
But first, I decided to go to Goodwill and find a pair of red capri pants that would go with my future peplum top.  I lucked out and found a pair of red capri pants in my size.

                                The dress I used was 3 sizes too big for me. 

So the first thing I did was to try on the dress inside out.  I looked in the mirror and pinched the sides of the dress until it "fit" and measured how much fabric I needed to trim off the sides.  Then I laid the dress in the floor and pinned up the sides and sewed. I trimmed the excess fabric off and used a zig zag stitch on the raw edges. 

I tried the dress on again (right side out) and measured how far down I wanted the finished top to be.  I laid the dress on the floor again and cut to the desired shirt length.

I put the excess fabric aside because I would use it as the peplum part of the shirt.
Then I tried the shirt on AGAIN.  At this point, I measured from the neckline to 1" above my belly button. (This measurement for me was 13") This is where I wanted the seam for my peplum.  I took off the shirt and cut where I measured 1" above my belly button. 

Then I did some math. I knew what length I wanted the finished shirt to be and I knew how long the shirt was at this point, so I had to figure out how long the peplum needed to be.  For me it was 8". 

Next, I cut the excess fabric to 8" long for the peplum.  Then I put it in my sewing machine to put in a gathering stitch to make it "ruffle-y".

  I turned the shirt inside out and the peplum fabric inside out.  I matched up the seams and pinned the peplum to the top. I tried it on again just to make sure I didn't mess up the seam like I did with this dress .  Liking what I saw, I sewed them together. It worked! YAY! =)  I trimmed the excess fabric from the seam (to cut down on the extra bulk) and used a zig zag seam to clean up the look on the inside.

However, the top still needed something else to make it more fitted.  So I decided to add two darts to the front.

(I'm glad I used tan thread. If I had used black, it would have been impossible to see the stitches.)

 I tried it on for a final time and was super happy to see that it turned out exactly as I wanted.

Don't ya just love when you do something right?

The total cost of my outfit was $4.76. ($1.06 for the dress I used to make the top and $3.70 for the capris).

***If you have some time, swing by my zibbet shop and take a look around!***

http://www.zibbet.com/TheRufflyBuffalo

Thanks! =D



I Bit Off More Than I Could Chew

This dress has been in my closet for months taunting me.  I knew I needed to do something to it, but I didn't know what. I thought many times about making it into a skirt, because I have a cute summer shirt that would work great with it, but I like dresses. 
I had the idea this morning to make it into a shorter, swingy dress.   Sounds easy peasy right? I thought so, too.  I was way off! lol 
I think I had the concept right, but my skill level is not what it needs to be to put all of that together the way it should look.

And in typical Monica fashion, I just thought "oh well!" and did it anyway. 

So I pinned it all together and sewed it. The waistline came out looking all wonky. Which also resulted in an uneven hem. And again, being me, I decided not to take it apart and fix it. I just added a sash to cover it up. lol  (You'd be surprised with all of the mistakes a sash/belt will cover up.)

I was gonna leave the sleeves on this dress, because I thought it would look cute, but I guess because it's a used dress, one of the sleeves was stretched out all weird.  So, off came the sleeves!!! 

I put on the dress and looked in the mirror to decide where the top of the dress should be cut.  I wanted the finished bottom of the dress to fall around my knee (which is usually around 21" from my waist, so I measured from the bottom of the dress up 21" and cut there. I had a middle section left over. (I used this piece to make the sash.)

On the bottom piece of the dress, I cut off the buttons and button holes.  I then sewed a gathering stitch along the top. Next I pinned the bottom of the dress to the top of the dress (and this is precisely the moment it all went downhill.) I sewed it together and tried it on.  It looked alright for something I guessed at and gave a try. But you can tell I didn't really know what I was doing.

To make the sash, I cut off the buttons and button holes on the middle piece of fabric, sewed the raw edges under and sewed the sash to the front of the dress (making sure it was completely covering the waistline.)  I left the ends of the sash hanging off the dress so I could tie it in the back. 

I'm kinda bummed I didn't do it exactly right, but thankfully, the dress was only $1.  Hopefully I'll do better on future dresses. 

So, I guess you could say I pulled a "Monica".  lol  (That's a F.R.I.E.N.D.S. reference for those of you who aren't as crazy obsessed with that tv show as I am. hehe)

***If you have some time, swing by my zibbet shop and take a look around!***

http://www.zibbet.com/TheRufflyBuffalo

Thanks! =D



My Most Special Refashion - My Mom's Dress

This is the most special refashion I've ever done. This dress once belonged to my mom, Penny.  As a child, my mom always wore dresses. She was a good Christian woman and we were always going to church, so she had tons of dresses and skirts.  When I was young (7 or 8), she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. In my teens, the disease got bad and she was confined to a wheelchair.  Once I became an adult, she had to be put in a nursing home where she lived until she passed away in 2008.  When she died, she only had two dresses. Which is what makes this dress so special.

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of my mom wearing this dress. But here are some of my favorite pictures of my mom...

 The picture to the left is my mom with her mother, Opal at my mom's wedding in 1976. 

  This is my mom at my sisters wedding in 1997.   This is my mom and me in 1995 (don't judge my glasses...It was the 90's lol)

 This picture is my mom in the nursing home holding my daughter Vivian. Viv was just 6 months old when my mom died. This is my favorite picture ever.


My sister and I decided we would each take a dress and refashion them for us to wear.  There was a pink dress and a blue one.  After months of my sister and I being indecisive about which one of us was gonna take which dress, we finally  came to a decision yesterday and I went to work on the refashion. 
*For the record, we weren't arguing over who would get which dress...It's like we were afraid we would take the dress the other one wanted. Yeah, we're like that. lol

I was lucky this dress pretty much fit me already, so there wasn't a whole lot of work involved to make it work for me.
(However, there was alot of pressure on me not to mess up! And I mess up frequently, so this was nerve racking!) 

Here is what I did to rework this dress:

1) I took off the sleeves, then sewed the raw edges of the armholes under.

2) I shortened the dress ALOT. Then sewed the hem. 

3) From leftover fabric from the bottom of the dress, I made a belt. I did this by cutting a long wide strip of fabric and sewing it together inside out. I then turned the fabric strip right side out and sewed up the ends.

I absolutely LOVE the end result!  I think mom would be proud. =)

***If you have some time, swing by my zibbet shop and take a look around!***

http://www.zibbet.com/TheRufflyBuffalo

Thanks! =D



Mad for Plaid

 I'm gonna take a guess and say this dress is from the mid 90's. I remember buying a bunch of dresses in this style from Jean-Nicole at the mall when I was a teenager.  I loved that store.  When I spotted this at Goodwill, it was the colors that grabbed my attention. Just looking at it puts me in a better mood.  That's when I knew this should be reworked into something fun. 

The sleeves had to go. And it needed to be shorter.  Once I did that I realized this had to be made into a strapless number.  So I cut the top off, made a casing at the top of the dress and ran elastic through it.  Trying it on, I decided it shouldn't be a dress anymore. It should be a bathing suit cover up! It's perfect because it's fun and it matches my bathing suit. =)

I did have to add 2 darts in the front and 2 darts in the back to bring the cover up in a smidge.  All that was left to do was hem it and now it's ready to wear to the pool! =)

This took me 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete and cost $1.

I apologize for the awful pictures. I realize that it looks like I'm leaning to the left. lol I had to take my own pictures. This is what happens when your 6 year old is so done with taking your before and after pictures that she makes up excuses why she can't.

                                        Her excuse? She was late for work. lol

***If you have some time, swing by my zibbet shop and take a look around!***

http://www.zibbet.com/TheRufflyBuffalo

Thanks! =D



Updated Sundress

When I saw this dress for the first time, I loved the fabric. It was knit, it was pink, and it was floral.  Super feminine.  The fit, however, was frumpy.  Comfortable, but frumpy.  The fabric screamed FLIRTY, but the style didn't.  So, I knew I had to change it.

I decided the best way to update this was to cut the top right off.  It was the best decision, because it brought the drop-waist up (which is way more flattering.) 
I chose to cut the fabric right above the second button.
I hemmed the raw edges around the top (without sewing the button flap shut...I may or may not have sewed it shut the first time. Thank God for seam rippers.)
I had to add darts to the bodice to make this dress more fitted. Without them, it looked like a maternity dress.
I also had to take the dress in a teensy bit around the underarms. It needed to fit snug with this new design and the original didn't require that.
Next, I shortened the dress. It hit mid calf and on my legs, and that's not a good look. So I cut it right at the knee and sewed a 1 inch hem.
Last came the straps. I used the fabric I took off from the bottom of the dress to make those. Once those were made, I sewed the straps to the dress. 

This dress took 3 hours to make. Now I have a cute, flirty, $1 summer dress!

***If you have some time, swing by my zibbet shop and take a look around!***

http://www.zibbet.com/TheRufflyBuffalo

Thanks! =D