It’s so great to be a guest blogger at Simply Designing! I’m Rebekah from http://www.potholesandpantyhose.com/ and I blog about my life on the road with my musician hubby, my remodeling projects, my photography, and the arts and crap that I enjoy making. I try to maintain a somewhat normal life, however, normalcy keeps escaping me.
Today, I have a simple project that you can easily re-create from an old dress that has seen better days. Typically the vintage dresses I come across have been ripped, stained or eaten by evil moths. Instead of parting with the abused garment, I hide the problem areas with a little creativity and turn it into a sassy one-of-a-kind shirt.
What you will need:
An old dress
Seam Ripper
Iron & Ironing Board
Straight Pins
Sewing Machine
Ribbon to match the dress (if desired to cover holes, etc)
Step 1-Assess how long you would like your ‘shirt’ to be and cut the excess off, leaving about two inches for hemming. I don’t subscribe to the midriff look from the late 90‘s, so I hem my ‘shirt’ to fall a couple inches below my hip bone.
Step 2-Turn your ‘shirt’ inside out and measure your hem all the way around, pressing and pinning it as you go. Sew your new hem with a blind hem stitch or whatever you normally fancy when you hem something up.
Step 3-If you have ribbon or embellishments that match your new ‘shirt’, now is the time to hide those stains or moth holes. No one will be the wiser! Sew them into place. In the past, I’ve made little fabric flowers out of the left over material to cover the problem areas.
For this shirt, I removed the ribbon that was once around the bottom hem of my dress to cover over a stain on the front, following the neckline.
I opened the seam where the zipper stopped on the backside and followed that opening with more ribbon. This allowed me a little more booty shakin’ room.
Step 4-Put on your new ‘shirt’ and strut your stuff all over town! Be ready for the adoring crowds wanting to know where you purchased such a cute shirt.
Come visit me at http://www.potholesandpantyhose.com/ and let me know how your ‘shirt’ turns out!
*Thank you so much for the fabulous guest post Rebekah! Wasn’t that an amazing idea?!? Be sure to go check out her amazing blog Potholes and Pantyhose!
Also, remember my link party runs until Tuesday so be sure to link up!
Happy Designing!
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The Thriftress says
May 10, 2010 at 7:28 amRebekah I am seeing you everywhere these days! I love this idea to remake a dress into a shirt. I just got a sewing machine for Mother's Day and I'm looking for projects!<br />Sarah
Loose Sparrow Arts N Crafts says
May 10, 2010 at 12:18 pmThis makes me wish I hadn't gotten my first D ever by being such a horrible seamstress in junior high. It made me never want to sew again….but I think I would if I could create something as fun and lovely as this!