Farmer's Market Dress

Today, I started off with this lovely dress from my local Salvation Army:

At least it has pockets!

You can't really tell in the photo because the print is so busy, but this piece buttons up the front with some pretty neat blue plastic buttons. Unfortunately, I'm not much of a buttons-up-front kinda gal, so I decided to flip this puppy backwards. I began by taking in the sides. Then, I cut a slit to create the V-shape for the neckline and top stitched to close it up:

Not a very deep V

Next, I chopped off about 8 inches from the bottom and quickly pinned and hemmed around the bottom of the dress:

Pinning makes a big difference!

Then, I tried on the dress and it seemed to be lacking something. So I took the remaining material from the bottom of the dress and sewed them right sides together to make a large obi-like sash. It really helped to pull the piece together I think.

Belt!

Finally, I pressed all of my hems. After that, I put on that dress and was ready to head to the Farmer's Market!

 Front and back!

Here's the detailing on the back.

And that's that! A nice summery dress for a trip to the farmer's market.

Scrap Stash: Posture Corrector

In college, I was a competitive ballroom dancer. In those days, my posture was perfect! After sitting in a desk job for a few years though, my posture keeps getting worse and worse -- I can never seem to keep my back straight -- especially while sitting.

Candid evidence caught by the fiance.

I was recently flying a Delta flight and perusing through Sky Mall magazine, as one does while delayed on the tarmac. Inside, I found this neat contraption called the "Straighten Up Posture Corrector" for the low, low price of $38.95. I ripped the page out of the magazine and was determined to make this myself.

Rriiiiipp!

This is probably the easiest sewing project I've ever done. I took a scrap I had lying around. Mine happened to already be hemmed around the edges, so that was one less step I had to do. This project could also be done with multiple smaller scraps by just sewing them together. However, I was lucky enough to have on that was just the right size:

9" x 53"

All you need to do is sew it closed with right sides together like you would an infinity scarf:

Don't forget to pin!

And that's it! Now simply twist the scarf into a figure eight like so:

Figure eight.

And loop your arms through the holes. Adjust the fabric to sit over your shoulders.

Just a little loose.

Ideally, this will be loose enough that you don't feel it when you're standing/sitting up straight. However, because this fabric doesn't have any give, as soon as you start to slouch, the fabric becomes tight (and a bit uncomfortable) bringing you awareness that you're slouching. I think that's my favorite part about this -- it's not actually correcting your posture, just reminding you when you're not doing it right. Helping the body help itself. You'll probably have to adjust the length of fabric depending on your shoulder width, though I tested mine on a few friends and it seemed to fit them all pretty well.

Hey! Nice posture!

This is probably not exactly the way the "official" posture corrector works, but I like it much better and saved myself $38! I noticed that it takes some time to get used to wearing the posture corrector. Since your muscles aren't used to supporting your back so much, you may only want to wear it for 30 minutes at a time at first to build up your muscles without hurting them.

XL Tank to Apron

I don't have a lot of photos for this refashion (I made this apron for my future mother-in-law's birthday a while back) but wanted to share it since it turned out pretty well. Here's the before:

Two over sized tank tops.

These two shirts were very kindly donated to me by a friend. They were very large as-is and I didn't know what to do with them. I decided to make an apron for my future mother-in-law's birthday. The steps were pretty simple:

I used the blue as the base and cut the straps from the back and sewed them together on top to make the neck loop. I cut off the back of the shirt and used the excess fabric to make the straps to wrap around her waist.

The blue shirt wasn't long enough to make this a full apron, so I added the bottom from the black shirt to elongate the blue. I added one of the black ruffles to the top of the blue shirt to even out the black from the bottom. After that, I added the pocket (who doesn't love a good pocket in their aprons?) and here's what came of it:

 Finished apron.

See how it would be too short without the black?

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! My future mother-in-law loved it, so it was definitely a success! Aprons are such a great way to refashion items made with good fabric that just don't have a perfect shape or length. One can never have enough aprons :)

My Easter Best

Easter was a couple of weeks ago and I had nothing to wear! A quick trip to the thrift store brought me back with this dress (among others):

The socks really complete the look.

The dress really isn't bad at all. The colors are fun and it's definitely Easter-y. Unfortunately, it's a size 14 and just a tad long for my taste. So after throwing it in the wash (I'm always nervous with dry-clean-only, but it turned out okay!) I flipped it on inside out and pinned it at my bust waist and hips:

Still rockin' the socks.

After that, I made sure that the seams would be even on both sides, and got to sewing it in. At this point, I had to make a crucial decision. The dress had a separate lining. I decided to just sew the two together rather than sewing twice.

Sew it up!

After sewing in the sides, I threw the dress back on. Bleh. The darts in the bust were still way off -- about 2 inches too low:

See that bust bulge?

At that point, I decide to change the neckline in order to pull up the bust. I wasn't in love with the thick straps, so I changed it into a flattering boat neck. To do that, I simply sewed across the top like so:

Anchors away!

After that, it was time to snip of the extra material, fix up a couple of loose ends (no pictures, but the slit in the back just needed to be reinforced) and voila! A new Easter dress. Changing the neckline was a perfect way to hike up the length and I think it turned out quite well:

Time for Easter!

Well, not quite ready. It's still below 50 degrees in Michigan, so a sweater was going to be necessary -- though let me tell you, 50 is a welcome relief to the snow this year! Here's my final look:

Happy Easter!