Little Black Dress

Hi pretties! It's been too long, I know! Life has been super busy lately, spent two weeks in CA for vacay with my hubs, we had a wonderful time! I have the funky tan lines to prove it! :) I'll do a post with some pics for that later. Today I'm premiering my copy-cat refash version of an LBD. I found this amazing beauty on Pinterest. Ralph Lauren. Couldn't find a price, but I'm guessing it's around $200. 2012's runway.

So I found this Amish wannabe frock for one dolla! Hello dowdy!

Aren't I pretty, all washed out, and pale? Bleh. This is a rather tired looking black cotton, so it won't be formal (esp because of the length), but it'll do for a semi-formal LBD.

First things first, chop that top!

I like it already! There's something so satisfying about chopping. Then I hemmed up the cut edge. Easy peasy.

Now what to do with those buttons?

I wasn't sure if I could get in and out of the dress without the buttons, so I decided to keep them. I thought about adding a button hole and finding another matching button to close up that last two or three inches, but then I found the clasps. Bingo! Now I just had to match them up and hand stitch them on. I chopped off the other sleeve and hemmed it up. Forgot to take a pic of it. :(
I tried it on multiple times, multiple ways, but the clasp wasn't co-operating, the top fabric kept poking out.  Not cool. I turned the buttons around in to the back, and the fabric bunched up. There's always something. Sigh.

It continued to look funky and bunch up and have issues, so I stopped working on it for awhile, hoping for inspiration. Inspiration was a long time coming. Finally I carefully took the buttons off and just sewed the two flaps together. I am still able to get into the dress!

I left the two top inches unsewn, and attempted to attach the clasps again, but it just wasn't having it. I stewed for waaaay too long (a week or so) on how to fix it, when it occurred to me to just sew it up. Genius. Not really. So all I had to do was fit it. And the corner that dipped down the farthest was showing my bra, so I snipped some fabric from the discarded sleeve, and put a little wedge in that corner. It fixed it wonderfully without looking whack. Now my dress was finally finished and ready!

Ta da!!!! You can see my funky tan line on my shoulder, grrrr, but here it is! I quite like it! Seeing as it's not very formal, I can pair it with a black or silver belt to make it fun sized. Here's the before and after with the copy-cat version.

Savings of at least $150-$199. Booyah! Learned some awesome stuff as usual, and am excited to start my next project! Cheers!