I found this denim dress for $1 at my favorite local thrift store. It reminded me of the dresses my elementary school teachers used to wear, with its bright embroidered flowers and floor-length hem. The early '90s, it seems, were not the heyday of teacher fashion.
I think my mom had a dress like this one back in the day.
Since I had so much fabric to work with, I skipped over the seam ripper and went straight to the scissors, hacking away at the dress. After separating the different layers of denim, I started fitting the top of the dress to my dress form.
Fitting the top.
Then I cut about 27 inches of denim to make the skirt. (For those interested, I've saved the embroidered bits, and may use them at some point in the future.)
Goodbye flowers!
Next I cut strips of denim to make the waistband and add run along each side of the zipper. I bleached these strips, so they would contrast with the rest of the dress. I also dipped the edges of the skirt into the bleach, allowing the bleach to soak up the fabric.
No cats were harmed in the making of this dress.
Unfortunately, I was not as careful with the bleach as I should have been, and I was left with a 2 inch bleach spot on the skirt. To help cover the yellowy bleach mark, I mixed up a little navy dye and touched up my mistake.
Out damned spot!
Then I finished the detailing along either side of the zipper, attached the skirt, and finished the edges around the neck and arms.
Bleached denim details.
I was in the home stretch, and I was pretty pleased with my dress. That is, until I tried it on and made a horrifying (at least horrifying at 10:30pm on the day before the dress had to be finished) discovery. It was almost identical in style to last week's dress. Dun-dun-dunnnn...
Look familiar?
Obviously, that just wouldn't do. Something had to change. At the urging of a friend, I tried something I'd never done before - an asymmetrical neckline. I was a little hesitant at first, but after some late night chopping and stitching, I was finally ready to dye.
I tossed the dress in a bucket of warm water with some aqua, teal, and navy dyes. After swishing it around for about 15-20 minutes, I tossed in the the washer to rinse out the extra dye, and then dried and pressed it.
At around 3:00am Friday morning, I was finally done!
Refashion Runway week 2: denim
Next week's challenge is to recreate something we've seen in a catalog, magazine, or celebrity. Won't you sew along?
- Elizabeth
aka The Hungry Octopus
9 comments:
That is absolutely lovely. Looks wonderful on you!
I think you did a great job, Elizabeth! Your bleaching/dyeing looks fantastic. The fit is perfect, too. Well done!
Another brilliant refashion!
who would have thought that the before piece could be turned in to something so trendy.
a lot of the jewelry I make is asymmetrical so why not clothing too :) Great job.
My favorite refashions are the ones where the "after" is drastically different than the "before" and this refashion certainly fits that! Love this! And it looks great on you as well! :) Great job!
~Jen
I've been following the Refashion Runway, you are all doing so well!
Your dress here is brilliant
Erica, Editor on Duty
Wow! I love it before (and could barely tell that it was the same style as the other one because they're totally different effects), but i love it afterwards, too! :) Lisa
Thank you everyone! Refashion Runway has been a lot of fun so far, and everyone is so talented. I'm going to have to step up my game if I'm going to keep up next week. ;)
Elizabeth
aka The Hungry Octopus
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