Nother Upcycle

Checked out a new book from the library called Last Minute Fabric Gifts (sooo great).  Anyway, one of the first projects in the book is making little silk flowers.  I don't have a ton of silk lying around, but I do have a ton of satin.  So I decided to whip one up.

While I was whipping one up, this kind of shirt was laying on the work table:

I've had it out on the work table a bunch of times in the past year or so.  It came with its sister (which you'll meet in a minute) in a grammy box a while back, but I haven't known what to do with it.  It's a lovely vintage German thingy, and it fits, but it's like a half-shirt, falling just below the boobs.  I think it goes under a dirndl

like so.  But I don't often wear dirndls, not even lovely heart-shaped ones like this number.  So I pull these shirts out every once in a while, admire them, and then put them back.

Anyhoo, like I was saying, I was making this satin flower thing, and I laid it down on the work table on the dirndl-shirt-thingy, and whammy-presto-whizbang:

I thought it looked pretty good.  But still didn't solve the problem of the dickey-on-steroids half-shirt girls-gone-wild problem.  What to put on the bottom?

Well...how about this number?  A former maternity dress thrifted a while back?  Hmmm?  How about it?

Yep.  That'd do it.  A little slicety-slice of the rotary cutter, and off came the cute-but-boring-me cross-over top.  Then, a little sewy-mcsew-sew, and voila, out came this:

I took in the belly a little, so it wouldn't be too maternity-looking, and did a double seam to join the two halves for strength.  It's a wee short, so I may add a little sumpin on the bottom.  But I think Lily (this scoliotic, bumpy dress form, purchased on Craig's List after the pitiful post, whose body looks remarkably like mine, is named Lily) looks pretty ravishing.  There's a bit of sexy librarian going on here, don't you think?

Well.  Maybe not as sexy as this librarian.

But I try.