Dress re-do

Is anyone else completely overwhelmed with the DESIRE to apply all of those great New Years resuolutions out there, but completely lost with how to actually do them? I think I need to change pretty much everything about my life. Then KK posted a quote today on her gmail status which brought a little sanity to my mind.

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one." —Mark Twain

Pretty good eh? So that's what I'm gonna do. Starting tomorrow--actually it will be today when you read this, but really, it's late already, and I'm sleeping for two :)

Anyway, I've had one task on my list for a couple months that I finally got to complete over the break. I had this vision in my head, but realized I completely lacked the ability to actually accomplish it. I brought it home and our dear mother actually ended up doing most of it for me. Hehe... I'm just not that gifted. Anyway, here's the project and although there's not really a way to duplicate the results, it's just here to help you get the juices flowing :) Turning that almost-perfect-something into a masterpiece.

What I began with:


Note the pockets (there's another on the other side):A great maternity dress that I found at a thrift store. It was new with tags, cute and comfy and LONG enough--big plus. (It's always risky walking behind pregnant people in knee-length dresses.... ) Anyway, I figured I could wear something over or under it, but with the empire waist and gathers it looks super lame. Just take my word for it. Also, the pockets make it bulky in awkward places and I just didn't like them.

So.. Vision: Cut off the pockets and make sleeves out of them!

How, I didn't know, but it had to be possible.

What we did:
*Cut off the pockets close to the seam like so:
Then we hand stitched the side shut to match up with the rest of the seam.

*Undid the seam around the shoulder to take off that end binding. We wanted to put that around the bottom of the sleeve we would make.


*Then we found a shirt that we liked the sleeve of and made a template on paper, adapting as needed so it would line up right.
*Mom figured out how to make the scraps fit where we needed them. It wasn't at all the right size so notice how there's seams on the front where's it's sewn together. There's another on the underside.
* The rest she pretty much did by herself...but eventually she attached the makeshift piece, and reattached the binding that we took off.

The end result:




It's seriously perfect-exactly what I wanted. See why we need to learn to do stuff? So we can make our kids happy one day :)

{My favorite part about these last pictures is my halo. :) We really need a better background to take pictures in front of than our metal front door...}

Anyway, envision and if needed, find someone that can help you do it, and do it. Then you can feel the joy of checking one project off your list.