How are these nautical refashions working for ya?

Sometimes, I think there's no way my silly blog post titles will work. I was showing one of these dresses to my sister and suddenly recalled that episode of Family Guy where the sea captain with all the peg limbs is talking about mens' health while using boat/ocean terminology. He finishes by asking, "How are these nautical jokes working for ya?"
Anyway, here's my July nautical themed dress number 1! Well, here it is before:

I brought it home to refashion during the winter, then changed my mind and put it on that dress form so I could list it on Etsy. After looking at it through the camera, I knew that this dress simply couldn't be worn by anyone in this form.
Then I got inspired to mess with it. When this time of year comes, I figure it's appropriate to boat themed stuff with anchors. Here's my result, anchor and all:

My sister did answer my original query by saying that the bust line looked high. Not fixing it. Here's the original post on my blog, Craft, Thrift, or Die.
This next one was one of my very first refashions when I picked up this habit last spring. Well, that's when I started it. I finished it a couple weeks back. The before pics are awful because I just grabbed a quick phone-mirror selfie.

Can you tell it has little ropes tied into sailor's knots? It's a blue silky shirt dress, buttoned right up to the neck with one gold anchor button. I used the button to fashion a little rope belt, but decided the dress looked better without waist rope. Over a year later I finally finished this thing! Of course, for every win, there's a fail! Let's see this vintage size 4 petite dress...

What's wrong here? If you guessed slightly larger hips, congratulate yourself with a cake! That's what I've been doing, apparently. I actually like my article of clothing. It's a long, sleeveless, silk jacket. Here's the full post!

Thanks for looking! Sorry, I'm not a better sewist!