Removing Ruffles and Ripping Seams

Hello Readers. I love hand-me-downs more than I can say. You just never know what you will get. I got a lovely blouse and skirt that were a lot of fun to refashion.

Well, maybe you can see what first stood out to me about this blouse. It fit great, but there was a little something that I wasn't sure worked for me. I don't like things around my neck, and this blouse seems a little overwhelming with this neck ruffle situation.

I felt a little bit like I was choking but don't get me wrong this was a great blouse! Who doesn't love J. Crew? And these soft fall colors are gorgeous.

My first thought was to remove the neck ruffle. I investigated inside the shirt and I could see where the ruffle was attached to the shirt. The seam ripper is pointing to the seam in the photo below. I just picked out the stitches and took the ruffle away. It was easy and didn't damage the shirt at all.

 

 Well, I took most of the neck ruffle away. This little ruffle turned out to be attached separately, it was like a collar. It was longer in the back of the neck and fell over. The front was standing straight up and I thought it should be more uniform. Either stand or fall flat, one or the other.

    

I used my machine to stitch it down and I really liked how doing that opened up the neckline. It will stay in place nicely now that it is sewn down.

I saw the colors in the blouse and thought I had a good match for this skirt. I have had this skirt in the refashion stash for ages. I couldn't figure out what to do with it. I didn't like the tiers of ruffled fabric very much and it wasn't very flattering on me. What could I do to change it?

Again I turned to my seam ripper. Could I remove the lowest tier of fabric? That would shorten the skirt to a more flattering length. I found the seam that connected tiers of the skirt together and removed the stitches. It was easy and didn't damage the skirt. The skirt was finished and hemmed at each tier so I didn't need to do anything else to it.

Here was my less ruffled outfit. It still had some pretty ruffles. The ruffled skirt really complemented the blouse's ruffled collar. It was very feminine and pretty. I couldn't wait to wear it.

AND THEN IT GOT COLD AND RAINY....

I really liked this outfit the way it was but the weather turned much cooler suddenly. I was going to freeze in this outfit if I wore it. I really needed a second layer. I had this light weight white sweater but I thought the white was too much contrast against the muted fall colors of the outfit. 

So I got out some dye.

    

This white sweater wasn't 100% cotton so it needed dye for synthetic fabric. I didn't have any dye for synthetics that would match, so I used what I had. I threw the sweater in the washing machine with this brown dye and hoped it would be strong enough leave some brown color on the sweater.

 This was what I got. I actually really liked the color, it wasn't a dark brown like on the bottle. The dye couldn't get that dark on this synthetic material, but I think the lighter brown worked well here.

     

I still haven't even been able to wear this!

Thanks for reading this post, now go make something fun for yourself.

*Year end update- I love this whole outfit. The skirt and blouse are personal favorites.