Dress to Shirt Refashion

 Hello Readers. This shirt was made from a linen dress. It was a pretty dress but it had a terrible nylon lining. Nylon makes me itchy and it's is hot in summer. I am trying to eliminate it from my wardrobe completely. I didn't mind removing the linen from the nylon and using it for something else.

 I love to thrift and when I do I look for fabrics that are unique and catch my eye. I saw this linen dress at a thrift store a few months ago and the fabric was so pretty. I had to bring it home even though I did not know what I was going to do with it yet.

Look at this fabric. It looks like an Impressionist painting. And it is linen. It's going to be great to wear in the heat.

I cut the skirt of the dress off away from the rest of the dress. I thought the skirt of this dress would make a nice shirt. Was there enough fabric? I thought there was just barely enough to make the body of a shirt. 

I used this pattern for the body of my new shirt. It is Vogue #  I cut out the body pieces and did not have enough fabric for the sleeves that were part of this pattern. I was going to make a sleeveless shirt if I had to.

I had 2 little pieces from the hemline of the dress. Could they be little cap sleeves? That was my plan. I pinned the pieces to the armholes to get an idea of how they could fit there. I wanted sleeves if I could figure out a way to make them. I really liked the pleated hemline of the dress. It would look cute at as the sleeves too.

I marked the sleeves with pencil so I knew where to sew the shoulder seam. Pencil washes out so I could mark as much as I needed. These were going to be the smallest little sleeves in the world.

I used my serger to sew the sleeves. Linen frays so this will keep it neat and strong inside. 

I liked my new shirt. It was light weight linen would be great for summer and the colorful flowers were so great for summer too. The very tiny sleeves worked out well. I like them. They balance out the shirt. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

***Year End Update***- I love this top. The colors are so soft and the impressionist painting vibe is so pretty. I still love it.

Happy Warm Sunshine Dress

 Hello Readers. I can't believe it is August already but here we are in the heat of late summer. August makes me think of sunshine and warm happy days. That is my theme this month, Happy Warm Sunshine! I found this plain white linen dress at a swap and knew it was a perfect blank canvas for a refashion.

Before and after.

Linen is so light and breathable in the heat of summer. I knew this dress would be comfortable. It's perfect for August. This dress fit pretty well. linen doesn't stretch so it couldn't be too fitted. Some cons for this dress were that I thought it was a little long on me and I thought the white was a little boring. I can fix both of those things, let's go.

I cooked up some yellow dye on my stove. (Rit dye to be precise. This is not an ad. They do not know me. I wish they did though, I love them.) I did not want to dye the whole dress. I wanted to dip and hang the dress so it had variation in the color. I did not dye the shoulders at all. I put the dress on a hanger and hung the hanger on my microwave. 

I waited about 10 minutes and moved the dress up. Then I waited 10 minutes and moved the dress up again. 

I have a cabinet above the microwave and I used that to hang the dress at the end of this dye process. You can see the dress has some uneven shades of yellow. That's OK. I like it. If you want very even color form the dye you need to stir the dye and the garment continuously. When I was done I rinsed the dress well and gave it a quick wash and dry.

I shortened the dress by cutting 6 inches off. I measured it to make sure it was even.

This is a quick over view of the hem and the cotton lining underneath the dress. 

This dress was much better a bit shorter, it just needed a sunny day to go out.

    I tried to match my son, go to church and take a picture. All in one morning. It was a lot but I managed to do it all. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

*Year End Note From Chickie- This dress still makes me so happy! The color is just fun.