Another Favorite Dress (rescued from donation)

I'm a slacker.  There, I've said it.  I have been doing projects, either forgetting to take pictures, or not posting the ones that I have.  Sigh.

I'm beginning to think that the princess has a borderline unhealthy attachment to some of her clothes.  She has a really hard time getting rid of her favorite pieces, even when they no longer fit or are full of holes.  This next dress fits both bills.  Granted it is a super cute little number from Gymboree, but alas, it is a size 6, and her 8 year old butt was hanging out of the bottom.  Not ok.  I didn't get any before pictures (of course), but what I did was pretty straight forward and simple.

I used an old black t-shirt to add about 4 or 5 inches to the bottom.  I made the strip longer than I needed and gathered it to make a little ruffle action.

Dress with added black ruffle.

Interior shot with screen printing from the t-shirt that I used.  It's on the inside, so I didn't think it would be a big deal.

 The appliques on the front are literally falling off, so I did a couple of quick repairs on those too.  She'll get another couple of months of use out of this one until she makes me come up with a miracle to keep it forever.

Thanks for stopping by!

Here Goes Nothin'

Welcome.  I've been on the fence about starting a blog for a bit.  I generally feel that most of the "mom blogs" out there are annoying, at best.  Most of them make me feel like I should have an opinion/clean house/dinner on the table all while being totally fashionable.  Nothing like a little pressure.  I'm going to attempt to show you the things I make.  Sometimes they turn out well, other times, I just make a mess.  The messes usually involve dinner, so you probably won't see many any recipes.  Because who needs a recipe for cereal or grilled cheese?  Plenty of places out there to figure out what to make for dinner, I'll probably see you there.

Ok, enough intro crap.  Here's what I'm working on today.  A too short dress for my almost 8 year old.  It's a 6X that I got at a thrift store a couple of years ago for a couple of bucks.  She's showing too much bum, and it's generally too hot here for leggings.  Did I mention that it's one of her favorites?  As in, "MOM!  You're not going to put my FAVORITE dress in the donation pile, are you?"  Sigh.  Note to self: clean out closets while the child is at school.

So, I'm making it into a skirt and little bolero/shrug jacket.  Here's the dress (sorry I didn't get a shot pre-chop, but you get the idea).

Choppy choppy.

  I left an inch or so above the actual "skirt" part so I could fold it over and sew, then slip some elastic through.  In hindsight I should have made a larger waist band area, as I hard a hard time sewing it due to the curly nature of knit.  No worries though, I just used a skinnier piece of elastic than I had originally planned.

For the shrug I simply cut down the middle of the top, folded it under and zig-zagged around.  I used yellow thread, I guess I could have used some cute pink, but then my drunk-like sewing would have shown up for the world to see.

And here's the after.  We'll probably get another 2 years out of it.

Future supermodel.

   Not too shabby.  I would love to know what you think!