The "Ripoff" Refashion

When I first bought this dress for 50¢, I posted it on my blog asking if I was crazy for wanting to rescue it. My younger brother commented and it was so bad that the thrift store ripped me off.

While I loved the fabric & pleated skirt, the top left a lot to be desired. Terrible sleeves, fake pockets in awkward places and shoulder pads = a whole lot of yuk!

I took off the collar, the sleeves, the fake pockets, shoulder pads and took out some weird pleating in the blouse area. But after that, nothing I did could make the top not look weird on me. So I left the project sit by my sewing machine for a while, in hopes that inspiration would strike again later. 

Finally, a couple months later, it did! And the "ripoff" dress ended up being a bonus, as I got a 2-for-1 refashion out of it.

Matching mother/daughter skirts!

I cut the top off the dress to make a skirt for myself, then turned the top of the dress into a skirt for baby! I used some leftover elastic from another project for the little skirt, so the whole project stayed at exactly 50¢!