Here it is, in all it's size 18, 80's glory!!!
I stalked the store for several minutes, searching for a bolero type sweater to go with it, my plan was simply to hike the skirt up over my chest and strap on a belt (there was a zipper and elastic, so this required absolutely no sewing whatsoever, and I already had the handy dandy belt). I didn't want to wear just the skirt as my dress without some kind of sleeves or something to go over my shoulders.. Strapless is not my friend. Seriously. Then it occurred to me, even though it's only my first real refashion, why not have a go at that top and see if I could make it into something passable and pretty? Light bulb moment!!! Bought it! (Seriously Goodwill, $9 for a ugly 30 y/o garment? Not cool.)
Headed home and got to work on it. Chop goes the sleeves, chop goes the bottom part of the top! (Sorry, didn't get proper pics of that process.) Start pinning...
Ah, what frustration, yet what joy! The vision I had for this piece was gorgeous (of course) the application, well, the less said about that, the better.
After many fittings, and many more fittings, and then a few more after that (I really need a proper dress form, although I think my zebra print is quite nice looking.) I finally gathered enough courage to put needle and thread to my creation, only to discover.....
I didn't have anywhere close to the right color thread. Grump. Off to Joann's I go. Arrive at Joann's to find that I DIDN'T bring a piece of the fabric with me to match the color!!! At least I remembered my coupon. Grumble grumble. Well I'll just guess and pray it's the right thing. (This rarely goes well.) After a good 10 minutes of agonizing over two nearly identical yet COMPLETELY different shades of thread, I gulped and picked the darker shade. Checked out, used the coupon, and treated myself to one of those 50 cent pieces of chocolate goodness thingamabob's. You know, the one with creamy, thicker-than-Hershey's-syrup-but-not-actually-cream consistency? Yeah, that one. It was delicious. Be jealous. So, I get home, and match up the thread.. Waddya know, it's actually a VERY close match! Yay me! Time to get sewing!
For some reason, this kind of edge was a pain in the butt to get even and centered properly. You can see in the earlier pic how it's got a rounded edge over the chest, it's very pretty, but very nit picky to get right. The first run-through I did, I asked my incredible fashion sense(less) husband if the edge was straight. Even he knew it was way off (not posting the pic because it's just not even worth it, use your imagination people!). Ugh.
Anyway, fast forward, I finally got it even (more or less, we'll just go with more right now), and said, 'whatever, I'm sewing it.'
Whirrr.. It went so much faster and less scary than I anticipated! Done! Now for the sleeves. I'm not even going to go into the sleeves. Suffice it to say that I hemmed them eventually, and they were surprisingly easy after the headache they gave me went away.
Final reveal...
Ta Da!!!!!!!!!!
I'm quite pleased with it! (I actually took in that top a wee bit more after this pic, it was just a bit too big around the sides, but for some reason I don't have a pic of that.. maybe I'll take it and post it later..)
So, this is it! Waddya think? Before and After!
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