1940's Inspired Refashion

Well my dear readers, last week was a very busy week at work and by the end I just wanted to unwind and let off some steam by working on a refashion.

Awhile ago I bought this dress because I loved everything about it! I actually had minimal plans for this dress. I thought I might shorten the length and change the buttons on the front. Simple.

 
Until I stumbled upon this picture on Pinterest... 

I was so happy that the dress I had was really similar to this one already!

All I needed was some of these... 

Awesome appliqués! It wasn't until much later that I realized that what I really needed was mirror images but I think I improvised pretty well.

I started with taking 7 inches off the length and sewing the new hem.

I wanted to accentuate the neckline so I pinned it back a little and sewed a new v-neck.

If you didn't notice in the before picture, this dress has ties on each side. Well, I don't care for that look at all. So I found a new solution! I decided to make the ties into loops and have them attach to buttons. Here I am snipping off the front tie on each side.

 

Measuring how long to make my loops!

Hand sewing the loops.

I added two gold buttons to the front to secure my loops.

Following the directions for the iron-on appliqué proved a lot more frustrating than I had anticipated. The directions say to first iron the appliqué from the front to tack it into the fabric and then flip it inside out and iron the back. 

Whelp, the 'tacking' phase did not work whatsoever! So....plan B!

 

I pinned the appliqué into place the best I could. Then I flipped the dress inside out and ironed the back of the appliqué. That seemed to work!

I got my dress done just in time to join some friends for dinner and drinks in downtown Detroit!

 Mmmmm pizza!!!!

 

 Me and the husband! 

 The friends :) Aren't they cute!?

Happy Refashioning!!!

 

Check out my stash of refashes on my blog: www.therefashstash.wordpress.com