Dressember #4- Plaid Overload

 Hello Readers. This is the fourth dress I am refashioning this month in honor of Dressember. Dressember is a style challenge and a fund raiser all in one. We were dresses or ties all month to raise awareness and money to fight human trafficking and assist survivors. Dressember estimated that 50 million people were living in human trafficking situations in 2021. Go to dressember.org to learn more about how you can help. 

Let's talk about this dress. This flannel was really overwhelming. It was soft and cozy but the bright plaid was too much. 

 

Before and after.

This dress was not doing anything good for me. I think the tie in the back was to improve the shape of the dress and make it more flattering but even that tie couldn't fix this dress for me. 

I put the dress on my dress form inside out and pinned the sides to make the dress fit better. I cut the bottom of the dress shorter too. It really did not need to be floor length. 

 

I used my serger on the new side seams because you can see how the fabric was fraying.
 

I thought short sleeves would be easier on the eyes I wasn't sure about this look. But then I found something else.

I thought the dress had shoulder pads and I wanted to remove them. But they weren't actually shoulder pads. They were these little fabric pieces and the fabric was pleated and looked like a little ruffle. That gave me an idea. 

 

I cut the sleeves off and left about 1/4 of an inch in place. I turned it under and stitched it down to make a sleeveless dress. 

 

I pinned the little ruffles to the shoulders so they peeked out from under the dress. They were such a great detail and they were more interesting than the simple short sleeves were. 

 

This is such a big improvement over the beginning look. The green plaid with small lines of red is perfect for the Christmas season. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

*Year End Note From Chickie- I love the plaid and the extra fabric from the skirt became a scarf.