Tuesday, June 21, 2011

A Refashion of sorts: T-Shirts to Fancy Dresses

Last week, my friend who is a very talented photographer wanted to try out a stylized photoshoot with my girls. Her theme was "Vintage Tea Party". So, she asked me to dress the girls up in sundresses.
Well, these days, my girls live in t-shirts and shorts, so it was either go out and hunt for cute sundresses or make my own. I know I'm not the only person who dislikes shopping, but if you listen to my friends, you would not imagine that to be the case :)
Anyway, I went into my "good for refashion" box and grabbed a couple of white shirts.

This first one is a little snug on me and tends to reveal every unsightly bump. Yes, I do have unsightly bumps.
Adjusting for size and adding on a ruffly skirt (made from odds and ends fabric that I have kept for such purposes), and this is what we ended up with:



Here's another top I saved for refashion. This top was really cute, but unfortunately, it shrunk quite a bit and ended up looking strange on me. Belly-baring tops and me don't go together well!
Given the same treatment, we had another cute top!

I apologize for the poor picture quality. I was rushed to prepare for tea-party photoshoot, and left my camera at home. What you see came from my cellphone camera. I promise you that the photographer's photos came out really, really well!

Monday, June 6, 2011

Stripey Twister Dress

When I participated in last month's spring top sewalong, I stumbled upon a really cool Austrian blogger, Janine from Heidi in Lederhosen. She is an unconventional, creative breath of fresh air in the refashion world. I love her freedom of expression in experimental sewing.

Through her blog, I found an exciting BurdaStyle free dress pattern, the Twister Dress.

Anyway, for my 35th birthday, my husband threw me a big birthday party. For that party, I decided to make the Twister Dress.

This is a really cool dress. It is free, provided you sign in for free to the BurdaStyle website. Although I could have downloaded and printed my own pattern, I decided not to waste printer paper. Instead, I drafted my own pattern (only one piece!) according to my own measurements.
I love the graded stripe knit fabric that I chose and I think it worked out really well.

It comes together really, really quickly after cutting, even with finishing the neckline, sleeves and hemline. I used a double needle for these stitches, and my serger for the two major seams.

The dress itself is unusual, rather form-fitting, and flattering. My husband says that it's rather va-va-voom. :) Seeing that it was my birthday, and that I was at home, I decided that I could get away with it that night.

Winner of Shabby Apple Dress





The winner of the Shabby Apple Dress is:

Commenter #4 who is Trisha!

I'm beyond happy for you, Trisha. What a wonderful