Rick-Rack Paddy Wack

There's not much to say about this one -- it was too easy. It's your basic skirt to dress refashion, but in this case, the waist of the skirt wasn't elastic, so I had to open it up a bit to make it fit around my chest.

Here's the skirt as purchased:

$6.99 -- not too bad, it's a good quality Talbots skirt.

One side has a zipper, so I left that partially unzipped, and on this side, I opened the seam to match. This gave me the breathing room I needed.

I tucked in the sides a bit at a angle, otherwise, the top would go straight across -- that would be weird. The only matching material I had for straps was this rick rack so it would have to do for now. Not my favorite, but I wanted to wear this dress right away.

I sewed up those hems around what are now the arm holes and was all set.

I couldn't find my camera so had to settle for an iPod photo. I'll do better next time.

Before and After - easy-peasy.

Fun with shoes! Yep, refashioned shoes.

I'm not a big shoe girl. I stick with the basics, black heels, brown heels and none of these deviate too far from the penny loafer style I grew up wearing.

Last year, I saw that someone posted about painting old shoes to make them new again. So I gave it a shot. I started with these fine, but typical for me, shoes.

Not bad, but how many pairs of black heeled-loafers do I need?

 I didn't go in with a plan, but I had some pale pink spray paint that I could use. I covered the heels and the buckle with newspaper to keep them black.

Taped and papered.

  And I sprayed pained them. This is how they looked:

 Not bad, but I went back and pained the heels and the buckle too.

Painted and ready to go.

However...I wore them once and it was a disaster. The paint got all crackly where the shoes bend as I walk -- across the top part, highly visible.

Not the look I'm going for.

So, back to the refashion drawing board - I decided to decoupage with fabric. I mean, they couldn't get worse, right? I used newspaper to make a pattern for each section of my shoe -- one for each side, plus the top. I used the paper pattern to cut out the fabric and I used Mod Podge to glue the fabric to my shoe.

Newspaper pattern.

Mod Podge and a foam brush.

There's a seam in the back, it's hardly visible.

I left the heels pink just for fun, but I used nail polish to color the buckle, 'cause the pink didn't really work. Now I have a new pair of non-black/non-brown shoes. I have worn these twice with no problems -- no fraying, no cracking, etc. I will definitely do this again.

When a Refashion Fails

Not every refashion is a win. The bummer of it is, sometimes you don't even realize until the very end, after you've spent nearly 3 hours in your un-air-conditioned sewing room where it's 87 degrees and all along you think you've got a winner on your dress form. Here's the story:

At a glance, you might think this was a win...it's not.

I bought this plan blue dress several months ago and set it aside after taking a few inches off the bottom. It has a matching belt, but I'm not sure where I put it.

Meh. I dig the neckline though.

Because it's so hot, I figured those sleeves had to go. I also wanted to do something interesting with the back, maybe a conservative racer-back, just slightly cut-in, so I chopped away and then turned the dress inside out on my dress form. That's when I saw this:

What's this I see around the neckline? Something I can use as a round collar, I think.

I dig that look of dress or tops with a round collar. So I decided that's what I'd do with this piece of materials. I started to take it off using a seam ripper but that was taking too long so I just yanked it off.

Don't worry, this will be on the inside.

Next, I cleaned up those frayed edged by rehemming all along my new collar. Then, I pinned it on the wrong side of the dress, around the neck line. That way, when flipped to the correct side, those seams would be invisible. (See...even with a fail, I learn or practice a new trick.)

Then, I just sewed that in place and turned the dress right-side out and back on the dress form. My technique of ripping left some frayed edges visible, so I pinned the collar in such a way so that my top-stitching would hide that.

Unsightly frayed edges.

Top-stitched and back on the form.

Nearly finished...or so I thought.

Now, when I see it in pictures, it's totally obvious that the arm holes are too big. And the dress needs to be taken in on the sides. Why I didn't see this from the get-go, I'm not sure. See, when I cut off the sleeves I was a bit too ambitious. This left the sides of the dress gaping. You can see that in the picture above. I didn't see, and I thought, "This dress is adorable!" So I put it on. There are no pictures of this because I was a sweaty mess.  But I pinned where the dress needed to be taken in and tried to tighten up the sleeve hole.

ALSO, while the neckline looks cute on the dress form, it didn't work in reality. The "straps" were too wide. The collar should extend past the sleeve part. So, back to the machine, I narrowed the sleeve area so the collar went past the edge.

Narrower arms so the collar extends past.

The arm holes are still such that I think I run the risk of -- side-boob!! EWWWW.

No one wants to see side-boob. Well, I don't.

I also don't like the way it hangs on me. So that's that. I didn't throw it out though. I'm not 100% giving up on this, but I don't think it will serve it's final days as a dress. Maybe a casual top. We'll see.