Prim Prom Dress to Polka Party Skirt!

Here's to hoping the hottest part of the summer is behind us!

With temperatures ranging around 90 every time I came home from work, lemme just tell you . . . there wasn't much going on but sitting in front of a fan and eating ice.

But we've been blessed with cooler weather, and lookee what I have for you! Refashions! Yay! :D

It all started with this dress.

It's so pretty!

 Don't let the moody picture fool you. That's not how I felt about this dress. I felt more like this;

omigoodnessi'msoexcitedeeeeeeeek! Like that.

And I even asked the Facebook HopeCycle followers what they thought I should do with it! Some great ideas, guys. :)

But first - look what I didn't show you!

It's a corset back - with a modesty panel! Sweet!

What to do?

I started by deciding where to cut, and pinning all three layers of the skirt together so they wouldn't shift.

Safety pins, so I can't stick myself :D

Aaaand chop!

Lopsided chop! That's okay, it's fixable.

Today I'll show you what I did with the bottom half!

All my pins still in place, I put the whole thing through the sewing machine to make sure it held together just how I wanted.

Lemme tell you . . . that was a lot of material to shuttle through!

All sewed together!

I then turned the skirt inside out . . .

Look, it has crinoline!

And then I pressed the top part down, all along the seam-line I'd just made.

Nice and neat!

Then I folded it over again, so I have a nice inch and a quarter waistband for my inch-wide elastic to fit through.

Measuring and EVERYTHING.

Next, I switched white thread into my machine and verrrry carefully sewed along the very edge of the waistband.

Verrrry slowly.

Then I threaded the elastic through the little gap I'd left (safety pin in the end of it, of course), and then sewed the elastic ends together and finished by sewing the little gap closed! 

And LOOK!

It's like a tulip skirt! <3 Just the teeeensiest bit of high-low action to give it character!

It makes such a cute tea-length skirt!

It's so wonderfully full and poofy!

I love it when you pair something soft and feminine with something more edgy

So yeah. This is one of those items that I might have a hard time letting go of. BUT it's for a good cause! Check it out over at the Etsy store - all profit from the sale will be donated to fight Sex Trafficking in America!

Mwa! <3

Black Lace Skinnies - boot-cut to skinny DIY

So when I first saw these pants, I was unimpressed. However! After this refashion, I almost want to keep them for myself!

But they started like this.

Black lace over black pants! Dated? Hmmm.

This ended up being a really simple and quick refashion! I simply put the pants on inside out, and pinned along my legs to take in the pants.

Safety pins, so I can get in and out without skewering myself!

And then I just sewed up both sides! (I didn't take a picture, because . . . they're boring. I'm sorry.)
They actually needed to be taken in all the way up, so I sewed about an inch, inch and a half all the way up from the knee. On the left side and I stopped right below the zipper.

And here's the result!

~Fancy paaaaaants!~

Higher waists are in right now, so it's a great time to raid your thrift stores for all those mom pants that need just a tad of updating!

Fancy pants in the sun!

My pet peeve is telling me I need to point out . . . notice how these are fairly fitted, yet still loose? Notice how they aren't painted on - notice how they aren't leggings??

LEGGINGS AREN'T PANTS. STOP COMMITTING THIS ATROCITY.

Leggings are just opaque tights. You don't wear just tights and a shirt. Don't do it with leggings.

There, I'm done. Phew! ^^; Back to the pants!

They look good with blue!

They look good with flats!

You should really just go buy them. Right now. $20 in the Etsy store! Support the fight against Sex Trafficking in America!

Thanks! <3

Regular A-line to Fabulous Fifties skirt!

This refashion has been in the works for a little while! Mainly because I'm a busy pumpkin. And possibly lazy. But mostly busy!

But it started out like this!

So laz - I mean busy, I didn't even model it!

It's pretty! I love that print. But it needed something more . . .

I decided to go with this pretty red!

Leftovers from this little red dress - for sale!

I then cut matching slits all the way through the skirt.

Next time I do this, I'll remember that I've got a measuring tape in the closet. But this time I just eyeballed it!

Then I cut the red material in half, and then in half again, resulting in these matching pieces!

You can tell I was doing this at night . . . blurrrry . . .

Then I had to mess around a bit to figure out how to make this work (which is what happens when you're just making stuff up. Dangerous business). I finally figured out that I had to pin it right-sides together in order to have the seams on the inside of the skirt.

Pin pin pin!

I did that all the way around, and put it through the machine!

Making sure to take the pins out as I go, so I don't break another needle . . .

So I'm sure you've figured out I'm adding pleats to this skirt! So I had to sew the pleats on the outside in order to have the seams on the inside, but then I just pulled the pleats back through the opening. But then what to do with that loose top bit? (Sorry there's no picture to explain what I mean by that - but we only sewed the sides down, so there was extra material flopping around at the top of each pleat that needed to be taken care of!)

Just sewed it to the inside hem of the waist band! Win!

Ta-Dah! From regular to retro!

Yay, pleats!

I really love the modern-but-also-fifties look of this skirt!

Too bad you can't see my shoes - they're fabulous, too. :D

And look how fun and full it is!

"I feel pretty, oh so prettyyyyy . . ."

So now you know how to add pleats to a skirt without completely deconstructing the whole thing! Hope it helps!

(Update:) This skirt has been sold, and 100% of the profits will be donated to fight Sex Trafficking in America! Hurray!

Much love! <3

Tshirt DIY: Boxy to Foxy!

Today is a t-shirt refashion!

(Can you tell I'm doing the simple stuff right now? It's TOO HOT to be stuck in front of the sewing machine for hours!)

I started with this old tshirt from college.

Regular old tshirt!

But its got a cool design on it - it should be cooler, to match!

I started by chopping the sleeves off, right next to the hem.

Snip carefully!

Then I turned it inside out, layed a shirt that fits well over top, and pinned up the sides.

So much easier than trying to pin it while you're wearing it. I seriously need a mannequin.

Yay, pins!

And ran it through the machine!

I just reverse-stitched at each end, so I didn't bother to tie the strings. Laaazy....

The neck is where I wanted to get fancy. I started by chopping off the original collar.

Bye-bye, annoying tag!

And then I took inspiration from a pinterest tutorial (which I can't find right now - sorry!!), and began to make incisions!

All the way around the neck!

My holes started off too small, actually, and I had to resnip them to about 1-1.5" long before it worked well.

We're faux-braiding the collar!

You start by taking the second strip,

This one here

And pulling it through the first hole, like so.

Puuuull!

Then you take the next one and put it through your new loop, and continue to do that all the way around! I decided I liked the look, and made more cuts along the back of the shirt.

Bigger, this time! This length works MUCH better!

Now when you're done hooking loops together, you've got a faux-braid around your collar! But how to finish it off? This is what I did;

This is the last strip I had, right on the seam.

I snipped the tiny bits attaching it, so it was a separate strip

I pulled it through the last remaining loop. . .

And here I'm indicating the start of the whole braid, the very first hole. I stuck it through that.

Once it was through that last hole, I just hand-sewed it in place with a few quick loops.

And that's it!

Ta-dah!

Now I've got a cute, sleeveless/cap-sleeve shirt with a braided collar! And the faux-braiding did some gathering/ruching all on its own, which I think looks rather lovely.

And I like that I left the bottom a little more flowy. Comfy!

And if you're liking the dragon on that shirt, you should know it was designed by my old roommate! She's a graphic designer and webcomic artist; go check out her webcomic, Wake The Sleepers!

That's all for today - time for me to go sit in front of the fan again!

<3