Re-engineered Dress

 Repurposing, upcycling, refashioning, sustainable sewing, whatever you call it, it's one of my favorites. I have taken a woman's dress and transformed it into a girl's dress several times (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). Today I have another one...

 This a pink dress refashioned from a Laura Ashley 100% cotton bridesmaid dress (made in Great Britain) from 1989.

Front

Back

4 flaps in the back, 2 small, 2 large

piping along front neckline was removed and reused

very well made dress

all 5 fabric covered buttons were reused

side zipper

bonus! 2 extra fabric covered buttons hidden inside the skirt!

circle skirt = lots and lots of fabric

 I wanted to stay with the sweet, soft, feminine, romantic style of the original Laura Ashley bridesmaid dress. So here is what I did.

removed zipper

separated bodice from skirt by cutting with scissors

bodice and skirt separated

sleeves removed from bodice

original back became the back for the new dress

one large flap removed and ironed

large flap opened up, permanent crease inspired pintucks

pins in a line, fold on pin line

iron on fold line, then topstitch

pintucks, 3 on left, 3 on right, all 1 inch apart

bodice cut out of pintucked fabric

3 fabric covered buttons added to bodice, original piping at neckline, bias tape sewn onto armholes

 For the skirt I took 3 skirt panels from the original dress keeping the original hem. I added in-seam side pockets to the skirt as well as lots of pretty pleats.

fabric covered headband and bow hair tie

All done, already worn, and a very happy customer. Now off to make an 18-inch doll dress out of some of the leftover fabric...

PS Did you watch the Great British Sewing Bee series 2 episode 8? For the alteration challenge they were asked to breathe new life into an old wedding gown, turning it into a little girl dress! Wow, what fun! They were given only 2 hours for that challenge, what a challenge that would be!

Canada Geese Dress and Headband Crown

 I did a knock-off of an Inge Van den Broeck dress.
A very Belgian style dress… the sewing pattern came from a Belgian sewing book...

Back (I am trying to do a better job with pattern matching on bodice backs)

Inside front (the dress is completely lined, the gold polka dots give a fun surprise)

Inside back

 Project details
Pattern: 'Stof voor durf-het-zelvers' book (= 'Fabric for dare-it-yourselfers') Pattern 8 bodice, pleated skirt made out of a rectangular piece of fabric (17 inches by 42.5 inches), skirt is entire width of the fabric with 4 pleats in the front and 4 in the back (each pleat is about 1 inch deep)
Size: 122-128 cm
Notions: 12-14 inch invisible zipper
Fabrics:
Canada geese cotton, Kathleen Keil Hill for Timeless Treasures Fabrics
yellow pima cotton for belt which was made the same way I made the red one for the Belgian style dress
skirt lining is gold polka dots from JoAnn
bias binding for hem on skirt lining was the same yellow pima cotton that was used for the belt
Tutorials:
thread belt loops
headband crown (In place of the quilt batting I used white fleece)

 The headband crown is a fun little project. It's reversible and the one I made is about 4.5 inches high and 8 inches wide. Slip it off, turn it around, put it on a different headband and you have a completely different look. I want to make more of these headband crowns in different fabrics.

Very satisfying results.

This is the fifth dress I have sewn from this book, see the first 4: Pattern 8 and Flap Collar.

PS If you are curious to see more items made from the patterns in the 'Stof voor durf-het-zelvers' book check out the 'Stof voor durf-het-zelvers' flickr group.

Felt Cat Ears Tutorial

 Felt cat ears for pretend play, dress-up, costumes. These are simple to sew felt ears that slide onto a headband. A super quick and easy project, too.

What you need:

• Paper and pencil to make a template
• Wool felt in 2 different colors
• Scissors
• Sewing machine
• Headband (I used a fabric covered headband)

 What you do:

• With paper and pencil draw the 2 templates shown in the photo. The big ear piece is approximately 2.5 inches wide and 5.25 inches tall. The little ear piece is approximately 1.75 inches wide and 1 7/8 inches tall.
• Use those paper templates to cut out 2 big ear pieces and 2 little ear pieces out of the wool felt.

•  Fold a big ear piece in half, place a little ear piece on top.
• At the sewing machine topstitch around the little ear piece.
• Repeat for the 2nd ear.
• Slide the cat ears onto the headband.

Purrfect for the little kitty cat lover in your life :)

>^..^<

Meow!

Thank you for taking the time to visit here.

Fabric-Covered Headbands

 {Handmade hair accessories week}

Today it's fabric-covered headbands… For these I went to Sally Beauty and bought a set of 3 headbands called Style It Up Glitter Headbands. I removed the glitter fabric covering, so I would have just the plastic headband. For these particular headbands I suggest cutting 1.75 inches of fabric on the bias maybe about 15 inches long. With right sides together sew about a 3/8 or 1/2 inch seam allowance and cut off 1/4 inch of the seam allowance, turn it right side out and slip it over the plastic headband. Cut off any excess fabric, tuck in the ends and hand sew the ends shut.

 These could definitely be worn as is, but look how cute they look with the felt bows and the fabric bow hair ties! So many possible looks with just one headband!

 The first 3 will go with her striped dress.

 The last one will go with her Gabriella dress.

And it just so happened that I already had some bias strips cut out (or at least some fabric already cut on the bias) from scraps from these 2 dresses, making this a super duper quick and easy project. Keep that in mind when you are cutting out a pattern that requires bias strips, why not cut out enough extra bias strips to make a fabric-covered headband?

It was fun to make all these hair accessories this past week, they are definitely instant gratification projects (so much quicker than sewing a dress!)

Bow Hair Ties

{Handmade hair accessories week}

More hair accessories… the previous days I shared ones made with wool felt: the felt bow hair clips and the felt-covered barrettes… now moving on to fabric. Following the Oliver+S free bow hair tie pattern and tutorial, I went digging through my fabric scraps looking for leftovers from outfits I've already sewn for my girl, you know, so that her hair accessories could match or coordinate with her clothing. I sewed 7 so far, tied them to elastic ponytail holders and voilà!

PS She won't be wearing them all together like this, just for displaying them for the photo to share with you :o)

Felt-Covered Barrettes

{Handmade hair accessories week}

Well this is embarrassing.. I have been meaning to make some of these felt-covered barrettes for several years (they come from an Angry Chicken blog post from 2007)! These are cute little felt sleeping bags for plain metal barrettes. Most of them I hand sewed a button on, but for the light blue ones I sewed on 3 teeny tiny jingles bells. Fun and easy, try making some yourself if you haven't already.

PS She won't be wearing them all together like this, just for displaying them for the photo to share with you :o)

Felt Bow Hair Clips

{Handmade hair accessories week}

We're getting ready for back to school and my studio has become a busy little factory for making hair accessories. Did I ever mention that my now 6 year old daughter has never had a hair cut? With her extremely long hair, something needs to be done with her hair to keep it out of her face, every morning before heading off to school. So these felt bows on hair clips should do the trick. I dug through my stash of wool felt (most of the wool felt came from here) and whipped up 7 bows following the Oliver+S free felt bow pattern and tutorial. Unfortunately my girl looses a lot of her hair accessories at school, and although I'd be disappointed if she lost some of these, I would only be a little disappointed as they take just a small amount of felt (of which I have plenty more in my stash), they are super easy and take only a few minutes to make. Now I'm off to make different hair accessories…

PS She won't be wearing them like this, just for displaying them for the photo to share with you :o)
PPS Looking for hair ideas? I did this post a while back about summer hair and Babes in Hairland has a lot of great ideas.

Girls hair rubber band color coded storage

:: girls hair rubber band & mini flower clip storage
:: "a place for everything & everything in its place"
:: 7 day stackable rainbow pill reminder was $4.99 + tax
:: clear rectangular plastic container was a baby food container

Happy hair accessory organizing to you !

PS This could be used for stretch band jewelry, rubber bands for rubber band bracelets, Rainbow Loom rubber bands...

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