Dressember 2020; The Gray One

 Hello Readers. Can you believe we are in December 0f 2020? Every December I refashion and wear dresses all month. Dressember is an organization that fights human trafficking and modern day slavery in the US and internationally. Dressember works with other organizations to be effective in this work. You can learn more about Dressember and its founder Blythe Hill in this TED Talk. You can also visit my Dressember page

I found this gray dress on my refashion rack and I do not remember where it came from. It is very soft and stretchy. I did not like the shape on me. It just did not seem flattering. It had no shape and I looked like a gray box. 

 A gray box with little arms and legs sticking out. 

This dress fit through the shoulders and I liked the length. I decided to change the shape of the dress. It really needed a waist. I really needed a waist. Could I just add a waistband? Why not? I used my dress form and marked where I wanted the new waistband to be. 

I searched around for elastic and found this thin green elastic. I think it was meant for making underwear but I am going to step out of the norm here and use it for this dress. 

This was such an easy refashion. The shape is more flattering but it is just as comfortable as it was before. The fit is so much better. The shape is so much better. I like it so much better. I layered up to stay warm but in spring I could wear this dress alone.

 

Thank for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

Dresses For December Part 5, The Shirt Dress

Hello Readers. It is freezing cold out there and I am still working on dresses. I am wearing tights and lots of layers to stay warm while I am wearing these dresses in honor of Dressember. You can go to Dressember.org and learn more about their work to fight human trafficking. They are raising money all this month and it starts with wearing dresses. Or bow-ties.

My dress today started as a 2XL men's dress shirt. It was really big on me and just long enough (I hoped!) to make a little black shirt dress.

 

 

Here is my beginning. This shirt was in great shape and I love black. But as you can see it is way too big and those arms are ridiculous on me. This was a great shirt to work with though, so I was happy.

 

The first thing I did was remove the cuffs from the sleeves. I used my seam ripper to pick out the stitches. I took them off the sleeves and left them to the side for later. I had a plan for them so I wanted them intact and in their original size.

 

You can see here what I cut off the shirt. I removed about half of the sleeve length and then reattached the cuffs. They will end just past my elbows. The cuffs make the sleeves look neat and nicely finished. I also took the sides of the whole shirt in to make it more narrow. It is pretty straight and boxy in shape. That's OK, This isn't a fitted style dress. I wanted a loose fit.

 

 

I planned to belt this little dress when I wore it. My dress form is wearing it here. It's so cold even she needed a scarf.

 

I wore this out and about running errands and when I added some extra layers I was able to stay warm but it was not easy. Yikes, it was frigid and windy.

 

 

 

***   BONUS PROJECT   ***

How did I stay warm? Fleece-lined tights. they look like basic opaque tights but inside is warm soft fleece. They are so cozy and warm. They are like sweatpants. I bought these without realizing they were footless and open at the bottom.

 

 

Here is the thing. They were so long on me that when I pulled them ALL the way up they were still hanging down on my feet. I didn't like the fabric all bunched up around my ankles like this. And I would like my feet covered and warm too.

 

 

I turned them inside-out and started stitching a rounded shape at the bottom of each leg. I was going to close them up and pretend they were meant to cover my feet.

 

Here is what it looked like when I was done. I cut off the corners so it would fit around my feet and I wouldn't have a bunch of extra fabric bunched up in my shoe.

 

I turned them right-side out and tried them on. It worked! They are closed and warm and now they do what I needed them to do, keep me warm.

 

Thanks for reading, I hope you stay warm where ever you are today.