One of the thrifty green projects that I really enjoy is remaking clothes. Last week I decided to go through my closet and get rid of anything that I didn't wear, or that didn't fit me that well or I didn't like the way I looked in it. One dress that I decided didn't work for me (I really liked it but it was a little to short and tight) I decided to remake for Mara.
It was actually a pretty simple project as I didn't have to do a lot to it. The picture above show how it fit her before I did anything to it.
I saw this really cool tip somewhere else online: when you need to figure out how much to take something in, put it on wrong side out! Above is Mara wearing the dress wrong side out and I figured out how much to take in the side seams and sleeves. I did that on both sides and then to make the shoulders fit better I added a bit of elastic. Then I cut a couple of inches off of the bottom and hemmed it again. With the extra fabric I added some fabric around the neck to fill in the neckline and I also made a headband for her.
Mara was quite pleased with the "new" dress and I was happy for her to have one that will be pretty and warm on her for the winter as well as looking better on her than it did on me.A blog reader recently e-mailed wondering if I had any ideas for re-using men's dress shirts (She was specifically interested in Shirt dresses.) I haven't ever remade any yet but after researching it a bit I am interested now! I thought I would post some of the neat links that I found. (The first my friend Betsy actually told me about some time ago.)
- A cute child's sundress.
- A video tutorial for making a shirt dress out of 2 men's dress shirts.
- A cap sleeve shirt.
