Refab! Plaid Do-Over

So, about a month ago, I found this dress at a local second hand store.  It was about 6 sizes too big for me, and was just kind of weird.  It had buttons, and pockets, and weird sleeves, and strange side pleats.  The up side?  I loved the plaid because it is so retro!  But this monster definitely needed some help.

What is this??

I knew for sure I wanted to keep the buttons, but nearly everything else had to go.  So I started by taking off the pocket, sleeves, and strange side pleats.  

After all of that, I was left with this beauty!

Help!!

Please help me!!

I got to work trying to make this beast fit.  This took a while.  How I do this is I put the dress on inside out and then just start pinning it smaller until it fits.  Sometimes I have to make a few adjustments to make sure my seams are straight before I sew it up, but this seems to work pretty well for me.  Now, if I only had a dress form!  Aaaah...the things I could do.  Back to work!

Could it be????

After bringing in the sides, the dress still did not quite fit.  There was still way too much fabric in the back.  My solution?  Darts!  Basically, I laid the dress out flat and pinned where the fabric refused to lay down.  Very scientific.  

Why is this picture sideways? 

Whirrrrrr!

Finally!!!  It fit!  Now for those sleeves.  I can't say that I have ever sewn sleeves before, at least not successfully.  So, needless to say I was a little nervous about this.  I came up with a plan.  I found an oxford-style shirt in my closet that was a similar fabric and had a sleeve shape that I liked.  Then, I just laid my pieces of fabric over that shirt and used it as a template!  To my surprise, it actually worked!  On the first try!  

I do need two sleeves.  

Now, pin that sleeve!

I sewed those babies in place.  It was all downhill from here!  All I had left was to hem the bottom (I shortened it up quite a bit from the original) and hem the edges of the sleeves.  

Dexter, the refab overseer.  He approves!

A little steam, and voila!  My new favorite dress for Autumn!  

I prefer the Before and After Side By Side Mind Explosion: 

Thrift Store Refab!!

One of my latest obsessions is finding clothes at second-hand stores that are meh, to say the least, and refabbing them into something awesome.  My most recent find was this boring and ill-fitting dress.  I liked it because it has kind of a vintage feel to it, but I was not crazy about it the way that it was.

Before.  Blah.  

Now, please, keep in mind, I am not a seamstress.  I am a girl with a basic understanding of how to operate a sewing machine.  My methods may not always be right, but they work for me!  (Usually.)  So I gathered some supplies...the dress, pink thread, black thread, some black matte fabric paint, ribbon, black double fold bias tape, and a heart shaped pop-up punch.  I also had some black tulle, but I decided not to use it.  

First things first...I needed it to fit me!  Since it's strapless, I wanted to make sure it wouldn't fall down.  So I started by cutting off the weird trim at the top and bringing in the bodice about two inches.  I also cut off the excess fabric so that it would lay flat.  

 

Next, I added some awesome ribbon (also from the thrift store) to the top edge.  For me, this served two purposes...most importantly, it looks killer.  Secondly, it covered up some ugliness from where I cut off the trim at the top.  Before I added the ribbon, though, I folded the ends under and sewed them so the raw edge wouldn't come unraveled.  Then, I just pinned it to the dress, and sewed it in place!  It's looking better already!

The dress was a little long for my tastes, so I cut about six inches off of the bottom.  Since I am lazy, and didn't want to take the time to hem the bottom of the dress, I pinned the black bias tape all the way around the bottom and sewed it in place.  This solved my problem of the raw edge at the bottom, and it looked awesome.  Even after this stuff, I thought it still needed a little something extra.  Here comes the fabric paint. First, I used the pop-up punch to cut a heart shape out of some card stock I had.  Then, I painted the heart onto the bottom of the dress.  

 

After that was dry, I ironed the dress, and Taa-Daa!!

 

Check out the before and after...

Before =(

After! =)

Waaaaaay better, right?  All together, with the dress and supplies, it cost me about $7.00 to do.  Now I just need somewhere to wear it!