Sunday, June 27, 2010

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.

5 comments:

  1. Nice work! I really like what you do!

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  2. I love seeing the progress here. And of course I love the word dirndl. : ) Beauteous! ~msh

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  3. What an excellent job! I like the length though. I know absolutely nothing about clothing but, in the 60's, that length was all the rage, wasn't it? I have visions of my mom in all those dresses in pics from the 70's after I was born. It's all very vintage looking.

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  4. Totally! It's very sixties-ish. You're right. I'll keep the length. I'll just have to be careful not to pick anything up off the floor... :)

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  5. Jen, you are the sexy, sewing-maven!! -Julie

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