Thrifting Tuesday January 18, 2011

The outfit that I have re-designed this week was a dress that I bought at goodwill.  It was a beautiful print in a large shapeless style with a giant and I mean GIANT hole down the back seam.  Seeing as how it was only $2, I bought it anyway to see what I could do to fix it, because I loved the sleeves and the amazing floral design, which I thought would be perfect for the Holidays.  I had it in my head for over a month what I wanted to do with the dress.  I wanted to take it in slightly, so it was a little more form fitting but still loose, because I enjoyed the loose look of it.  I wanted to fix the hole in the back by placing a big, black and gold jeans zipper down the back that I bought in the fabric store.  I just knew it would look great.  It would be perfect for Drew's Grandma's Christmas party.  I had been planning it since November.  Well, typical me I waited until the last minute to sew the dress, and this was also during my time of Non-Inspiration during my job-mental-breakdown fiasco, so there it was Christmas eve right before the party was going to start and here I was sitting at home with the old original dress in hand, not even having pinned it for fitting yet.  Rushed as I was, but still determined to get it done to wear to the party I enlisted my mom to help with the pinning and sewing.  Afterall, I thought, wouldn't two people be quicker and more efficient than one?  Well in our haste to sew the dress, my mother took it in too far on the bottom half.  I didn't really have time to try it on at her house, having to rush off to get gifts wrapped and prepare for the party and for spending the night at Drew's mom's house afterwards.  I trusted our original pinning measurements to be accurate.  Well, was I ever wrong.  At home, after wrapping what seemed like hundreds of gifts and my overnight bag and loading everything into the car, I got dressed and was bending over to put on my shoes when I heard the sound NO ONE ever wants to hear....rrrrriiippppp!  the dress split open up the side seam!  What was I going to do!? That was the outfit I had been planning for months!  And I hadn't even put the zipper in like I originally wanted to!  Having no time to change my outfit or really think about what I was doing I grabbed some jeans, threw them on, and tucked in the dress to create a holiday top.  It looked so cute!  And I still had the benefit of getting to wear the pattern that I loved!  It ended up being a win-win, and I was happy, though not 100%, with the outcome, and I still got compliments on the top!  No one ever even guessed that it had at one time been a dress!  Everything worked out well!  I don't have pictures of the original dress, or the altered one, but here are pictures of the "top" that I ended up with!