From "Meh" to "Fun!"

I gotta say, I dig this one. I actually bought this dress about 2 months ago - because of course I loved the colors. It buttons up the front and has a collar -- I'm not really keen on collars, but I was willing to give it a shot.

When I first got it home and put it on my dress form, I thought there wasn't much I could do to it. Maybe shorten it a bit, but that's it. So I put it away and pretty much forgot about. Here it is at the end of summer and I finally took it back out yesterday to give it another look-see.

As it turns out, yesterday I was messing around with some no-sew DIY halter tutorials from Wobisobi. Although the tute was really easy, mine didn't come out right -- but I'll try again because it was still really cute. So with halter on the brain, I turned to my dress and thought - that's it!

And here's how it went... 

Here's it is as purchased ($7.00 btw). Nice print, blah shape.

And from the back - this is where the magic happens on this one.

First, I cut out from under the arm and around the neck, leaving the collar and the fabric under the collar in tact.

This made the back very loose - I have pinned it here and later took that in a few inches.

Then I pinned all around the cut-out part.

All pinned.

All sewn up. In this pic, I have already sewn in the back seam to tighten up the dress. 

I also took about 6-8 inches (I don't measure) off the bottom and hemmed it. With the fabric from the hem, I made a sash to give the dress some more definition.

I don't like the way my hair/face looks in these pics so you only get a picture of me in the dress from the back. Trust me, you don't want to see me from this front in this -- it was 9AM.

I'm pretty happy with what turned out to be a sassy little dress! I plan to wear this in November in New Orleans on my Girl's Weekend! (Weather permitting.)