A completely "bleh" wardrobe (mostly cold-weather stuff, too) and a clothing budget of just about $0. If you saw how fast my kids are growing right now, you'd know why my clothing budget is so small. A secondary problem: I was getting into a clothing rut. Everything was starting to look the same, and none of it was very great.
The Mission:
To simultaneously revamp my wardrobe and jolt myself out of a fashion rut, all while spending next to no money.
The Shopping Rules:
1. Spend no more than 20 minutes in a thrift store.
2. No single piece of clothing can cost more than $5, preferably much less.
3. No trying-on. Yep. Just see, grab and go.
4. Take my stash home and turn it into something fabulous.
Here's my first attempt:
Yeah. This one is a wee bit too big for me. I decided I wanted a cute tunic, and this is anything but cute right now. That's nothing a little scissor treatment won't cure...
I decided I wanted my tunic to have a little shirring action going on.
First, I cut off the side seams, then I adjusted the front.
Whoa. This dress really needed a haircut. By the time it was all over, I cut about 8 inches from each side (!!!) and about 10 inches from the length on the back. The front I kept nearly the same length because I needed it for that shirring action, remember?
Then I drug the dress/tunic over to my handy-dandy sewing machine and made a running stitch on side seams of the longer front side. After a little adjusting of the gathers so that the total front length matched that of the back length, it was ready for a trip through the sewing machine.
Pinned and ready for action. Oh, no!! A skipped stitch!
Relax. It's just the gathering stitch. Everything's gonna be okay.
Zoom. Zoom.
And that was it. I decided to leave the hemline raw because I was lazy I didn't want added hemline bulk and this is a knit, so it won't fray. Usually I am meticulous about raw edges, but this is a light, flowy knit and a bulky hem really wouldn't have been a good idea. Honest.
And here it is:
Now, isn't that better?
I'm a bit funny about showing my naked shoulders in public, so I grabbed a cardigan, and out I went. Here's a pic with my shoulders in hiding:
See? Wasn't that fun?
So what do you think of our very first Refashion Friday? Love it? Hate it? Let me know in the comments!
Have a great day!
Angela
Never miss another post! Follow Gallimaufry Grove in the sidebar!
