Poofy Dress Week #3-Adding Sleeves

 Hello Readers. I am into the loose poofy dresses that are popular right now. They are fun and so  comfortable because there is no tight waistband! I love it. Today's post is poofy dress 2 and I found it at a thrift store. The color reminded me of Barbie, who I love. But I didn't love the straps, I kind of wanted sleeves. Big sleeves.

Before and after.

This dress was great but it was too long for me. Or I was too short for it. Either way, we need to fix this. I couldn't make that lower tier shorter. It would look weird if the bottom tier was half the length of the others. It had to be fully removed. That was fine because I had an idea about what to do with that extra fabric. 

I removed so may stitches. My seam ripper got a work out. This took a while but I wanted the edges intact. I couldn't cut it off, that would mess up the length of the tier above it.

I was working on this for quite a while. I had second thoughts but I kept going. When I make a decision, I follow through. Even if it is much more tedious than I thought it would be. I don't know if this is a strength, it is just what I do. 

 

I did cut the straps off the back of the dress. 

 

I pulled the straps from the front over the shoulders and sewed them in place in the back where the back straps used to be. These are the beginnings of my sleeves.

 

I cut the tier in half and used one half for one sleeve and one half for the other. I draped the fabric over the shoulder strap. I pinned it to the strap. The fabric had a pretty ruffled edge that I used at the shoulder. It matches the little ruffled edge at the neckline and looks great.

 

I pinned the sleeve all around the strap and then to the dress, under the arm. I had more fabric than I needed so I cut off some of the extra fabric. Everyone's arm size is different, so the measurement around the arm and over the shoulder will differ. The sleeve is still nice and poofy.

 

I sewed the sleeve to the strap and connected the sleeve together under the arm. 

 

It looked kind of like this. I liked the square neckline but I thought the sleeves needed a little more something.

 

I decided to add narrow elastic around the sleeves, about 2-3 inches from the ends of the sleeves to make a nice puffy sleeve. 

 

Sleeve close-up! 

 

 I was loving these sleeves and I was ready for a Barbie Re-watch party. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

 

***Year End Update***- This dress is so fun. I wore it a lot until cold weather hit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poofy Dress Week #2

 Do you like big poofy dresses? They are all over my Instagram feed and I love them. This yellow dress was such a pretty eyelet lace, I loved the cotton fabric and it had a cotton lining. No nylon anywhere?? Thank goodness. I hate nylon. But these little spaghetti straps were not  great for me. 

Before and after.

I loved almost everything about this dress, except the straps. How do people where a bra with these little straps. My bra straps are not narrow like this. And strapless bras are not always comfortable. But I had an idea. Let's add sleeves. 

I removed the bottom tier off and saved it for sleeves. Stay with me though, I am going to put it back on the dress later.

I pinned the fabric from the bottom of the dress to the shoulder sleeves to make sleeves. But I didn't use all the fabric, only about 1/2. I sewed the sleeves to the straps so my shoulders and bra straps would be covered. 

The sleeve is attached on the strap on top of my shoulder and on the dress under my arm. 

If you look closely, you can see how much less full/gathered the lowest tier of the dress is after I took  off the lowest tier to make sleeves, and put what was left back on the dress. I don't mind it being less gathered. It still looks full and I love having sleeves. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

***Year End Update***- I really liked this dress more with sleeves. I wore it often in summer.

Fast Fashion-The Shein Dress

 Hello Readers. I try to avoid fast fashion when I can The fabrics are usually lower quality and the sewing s not always well done... but mostly the working conditions can be very poor, unsafe and world-wide clothing manufacturing has a big problem with forced labor and human trafficking. I hate to be a downer but it's true. The thing is, when you by second-hand or thrift, you are not contributing to that cycle. When I saw this Shein dress at Goodwill I thought it was really pretty. Buying it at a second hand store doesn't benefit Shein and doesn't contribute to the problem the way buying directly from the company does. This dress is already out there. Letting it go to the landfill just creates and adds to another problem. I brought it home with me. 

This dress was dragging on the floor. I went to tea length and then knee length. 

According to the EPA, 84% of clothes at the thrift stores go to the landfill. If you want to take something home, grab it and save it from that fate.

 

 I knew this dress was going to need to be shorter. This outer layer of the dress was made tulle and it doesn't fray. The maker did not hem it and I don't need to either.

 

I cut the lowest layer of the tulle. I cut right above the seam that connected it to the dress.

I used that tier to determine how much of the lining to cut off. 

I cut the lining. I folded it on itself to try and keep the length even when I cut it. 

 

I used my serger to finish the cut edge of the lining fabric. It doesn't need to be super neat or perfect because it will be under the tulle.

I thought I would really like the tea length. It wasn't bad but I wasn't really satisfied. 

I started over and cut off the next tier and re-cut and sewed the lining again. The dress was now knee length. I thought this would be cooler for summer.

I had to run some very important errands. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

***Year End Update- I haven't bought anything else from Shein, it isn't a great brand, but I see it very often at thrift shops.