Refashioned Maternity Dresses

EDIT: Not all the after pictures are up yet. They will be.

So I tried to refashion some dresses I bought at the thrift store into maternity dresses. The maternity dresses I have were getting quite worn out, and I reasoned that refashioning some already-made dresses should be easier than making a dress from scratch, right?

Hah.

Anyway, they took wayyy longer than I wanted (I worked on them on and off for over a month) but I didn't want them to end up in my UFO bin(s), and so I struggled on.

Overall I am pleased with the results, although if I knew how much time it would take, I don't know if I would have done it in the first place.

Brown Dress: From the thrift store, a beautiful brown eyelet crossover dress, fully lined, with a skirt that flared a little at the ends. Came to just below the knee. I loved the fabric. I don't know why I like wearing brown so much....and the eyelet has a leaf theme.
Problems: It isn't a maternity dress. I needed to wear it with a camisole. I really don't like the look of the fake (non-closable) collar on me, or the look of wrap crossover dresses on me---they require a deep V, but I think the shallow V or the Y neck look a lot better on me. I used to try wrap crossover thinking that it would be easy to nurse in...but its not for me, I need to pin it akwardly in place and unpin it, etc. And if its a wrap I have to loosen the whole thing up (under a nursing cover...in public) which is kinda nerve wracking.

BEFORE

AFTER
 [pictures coming soon]

Purple dress A warm purple high quality woven fabric, made into a crossover dress with a thick empire waist band, with a pleated skirt.
Problems: Again, crossover doesn't work for me, and the neck was too low to wear without a camisole. I loved the pleats in the skirt (although due to bone-headed mistakes while refashioning this, I ended up having to repleat the waist anyway)
AFTER (I didn't take Before Pictures, alas)
[pictures coming soon]

Teal Dress
This one, my MIL bought me years ago, I picked it new from Kohls, intentionally getting an XL to refashion it to my tastes. It's a beautiful soft teal knit with screen printed design on the skirt. (I think that's why I picked it. I love light-colored embellishment on darker fabric)
Sleeveless, though, which after burning the tops of my shoulders so badly that I couldn't shower for a week, I try to avoid. Anyway, I got this dress years ago. Now, I finally found a T-shirt at a thrift store whose color matched enough to supplement the fabric.
I discovered I am not good at fitting knits to a woman's shape. Thankfully, it turned out way better than I feared as I worked on it.

BEFORE: I look like an idiot in this picture, but that's kind of the point, right? Refashioning this dress not only looks better but added 20 points to my IQ! Or something....

Things I learned, the hard way....

1. VERY FIRST STEP, cut off the sleeves, cut open the side seams, usually cut the underbust-to-skirt seam as well. Make it flat.  Don't try to "save seams" anywhere on the bodice. Cut away, make things flat, and trace your base patterns onto them. You will save time in the long run than pinching things just so and hoping it works. My creative solutions look bad.
2.  Do "checking measurements" while working (before sewing it all up). Will the armhole measure at least 16" + Seam Alloweances? Does the center bust come up at least 6"? Does the underbust measure 31"? Does the bust have atleast 36"? This saves a lot of trying it on, refitting,etc. (If the Armholes are huge, but you still need the bust width and can't afford to cut new armholes, then armhole darts are your friend)
3. ONLY EVER BUY XL OR maybe L sizes, that come AT LEAST to calf length. That way I KNOW I will have enough fabric not to desperately piece things and hope it looks alright. It's just so much more relaxing. Which the whole point of refashioning is, to save time (and $, of course...)
4.  Only buy woven dresses to refashion (unless the bust already fits perfectly). Knit dresses + Fitting a woman = Pain for me. (Save the knits for the kids, that's just fun) 
5. Always do a lapped zipper for front nursing access. ALWAYS. Do not try to sew in standard zipper style and "hope for the best", it will pull open and look bad. Yes, lapped zippers take more fabric, but piecing is your friend here. Just piece in the front, and extra seams still look better than a zipper popping out.

And here is a knit teal dress I refashioned from a woman's shirt, for Jenny. Little people are sooo much easier to sew knits for. I think I shall generally only sew knit dresses for little people from now on.

Store Up Not for Thyself....

 Lay not up for yourselves...

 treasures upon this earth....

where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal....

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, 

where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Day 4 of battling the carpet beetle infestation, laundry, moving furniture, laundry, vacuuming, poisoning, carpet cleaning, laundry.... 

It's exhausting, and not just for me, but my poor mother in law is working and working on this. And the worst part is, its mostly my fault (and a little bit the 8 cats fault, for shedding fur, mostly long haired, which makes the dust here delicious). 

My fault, because of my stash of fabric and things made out of fabric that I was "going to refashion." Like those 2 beautiful deep red wine colored wool winter coats I got from the thrift store for the amazing deal of 15 bucks total, that were going to turn into a splendid medieval winter coat with silvery buttons....
Or the piles of sheets and re-purposed clothes, all awaiting their transformation into medieval-inspired gowns and nostalgic children's clothes. 
Or the 15 belts and worn out shoes & boots that I had stuffed in bottom of my closet with dreams of glory, of scabbards and medieval boot making skills....

For some reason they really like fabric stored under beds, and in closets. I don't know why they are on the cotton as they can't eat cellulose, but I suppose a thin layer of cat hair is all they need. And evidently the leather & keratin-muncing pupae (hatch in 5-35 days, are pupae 2 months to 2 years) live quite a while, eating and eating in the dark to prepare for their brief 2 weeks of adult life in the light.

When I found the first signs, and told Josh, he said "Store up not for thyself..."
When I threw the wine-colored coats in the trash, and said it to myself. I think God is trying to get my attention.

Resolutions:

1. Vacuum the floor and closets 2x a week. (and wipe down dusty baseboards) Mondays and Thursdays. Make one of those times moving furniture that can be moved.

2. Do a deep cleaning 2x a month. (moving mattresses, vacuuming under beds, dusting bookshelf tops and trying to vacuum as much as I can behind dressers, dusting baseboards) First and Third Mondays of a month.

3. Do Fall and Spring Cleaning, moving all the furniture, shampooing the carpet (especially closets) and washing the walls and baseboards.

4. Don't store stuff under beds, or on carpet level. Put it in tubs and stack them to high heaven.

5. If I'm not planning to make it into something in the next 7 years, DO NOT BUY IT, nomatter what a great deal it is. While I might be saving money on a deal by buying it now, say I get it for 4 bucks now instead of 24 bucks ten years down the road, I am saving 20 bucks but hauling a chunk of stuff around with me FOR 10 YEARS. That's 10 YEARS of space used up in my home, 10 YEARS of mental stress about my stuff not getting moth and rust and all that. It comes out to 2 BUCKS A YEAR for hauling it around. So if I realistically am not sewing something for the next 7 years, don't buy it.

6. If it takes me more than 20 seconds to figure out what I'm going to do with a scrap, then throw it away. (and that use had better be within the next 7 years) I love making silk purses from a sow's ear. I love taking somthing that would have been thrown away, and turning it into something precious. Like a medieval hat from an empty diaper genie refill container (literally). Or elven leaves applique from T-shirt scraps, or fabric flowers from old shirt collars....
I hate to think of a 10" x8" piece of a white sheet rotting in a landfill just because I was too lazy to come up with a use for it.
I hate wasting fabric, even cheap fabric. To the point that I find cutting out patterns mentally exhausting, as I reposition my pattern pieces for half an hour, trying to get the least wasteful method of cutting them out from a polyester mockup sheet. I want to have a scrap bin, waste turned into endless possibilities, that I will transform into amazing things. 
But the truth is, my scrap bin is paralyzing. I feel I must justify the existence of each scrap, like the animate things in a Hans Christian Anderson story, and give them purpose. And if I throw them away, its like I've failed. It's emotionally exhausting to dig through the scraps and try to think of uses for little odd shaped trapezoids of fabric. I cart around little 2" wedges of fleece that I might turn into fleece flowers, etc, because I can't bear to see them sitting in a landfill till Jesus comes back.
But  all I'm doing is turning my house into that landfill. 

And it is paralyzing my creativity (Its so much easier to make flowers from a 75 cent piece of felt, than spend an hour piecing together fleece bits from my scrap bin), and time is a resource too. A very precious limited resource with the kids and all. 


And something else I've realized. Trying to make cool stuff when you are unemployed or trying to support 3 kids off a grad school stipend, made me value money. If I could decorate, sew, and make beauty for cheaper, than it was possible. I wanted to prove that you didn't need money to make things. That you could get a medieval gown with thrifted table-clothes, a medieval hauberk with a stained leather jacket at a thrift store. That with grit and ingenuity, I could make all those things that other people spent thousands on, with grit and pocket change.

But there's something else, much much more precious and limited than money. Time. 

I only have one life on this earth.

And yes, in my lifetime, even with very limited funds, I might be able to sew and make every cool craft and dress and medieval weapon that was in my inspiration folder. With lots of creativity and a little money, making dresses and boots and swords and satchels...

But I only have one life on this earth.

And while I could do it, it would use up all my time.

And there are other things I want to do more. Read the Hebrew and Greek, read the Church Fathers and Midrash, write children's books with beauty & symbolism, help re-write StarCraft, make movies that touch people's souls and reveal the deep symbolism that God wrote into the universe, go camping with Josh & the kids on a frequent basis, teach the kids survival skills and archery and history....

And there's the things I should do more, because I know when I'm 70 I'll look back and wish I did them more, read the kids more books, eat more popsicles with them, cheerfully change diapers, make Josh tasty lunches, listen with Isaiah says "Mommy!" at the crazy little babble he has to say....

So.

"Fix your eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our Faith....so that you may run..."   

                            ~ (Hebrews 12 from the slightly mashed Bible in Hannah's head...)

I haven't been fixing my eyes on Jesus. I've been fixing them on my wishlist, on supplies I need to get from craft stores, on the pretty things I want to make. And I haven't been running. I've been sorta slowly trailing, like a kid on a leash not wanting to leave the park, who had calculated the most amount of resistance he can do before the frustrated parent turns around and reprimands him....I've treated God like the frustrated parent, who is trying to take away my happiness, when really, he's trying to get me to the brink of battle, to the wind from the break in the sky and the morning star...

Refashioned Blouse

Long ago, when Isaiah was still tiny enough to fit in my belly, I went forth to a thrift store and bought a blouse. I mostly got it because of the beautiful chunky lace in the front, and I assumed it was a maternity blouse with the band in the front.

 Alas, after I bought it and tried it on, I found it did not fit well. At all. And it was not really a maternity blouse at all. 

So I refashioned it. I cut the sleeves into cap sleeves, and turned under the edge a couple times and sewed it. I cut the neck wider, and finished it off with bias tape folded over and sewn into the inside. I took a couple inches off the bottom, about 1.5" out of each side, and cut off the too-long bust by a couple inches, raising the waist band to empire level.

I also picked off the bottom of the blouse from the band and ironed out the gathers, cut off the 1" extra of ease that gave, and reattached the buttons and button holes (yay for the seam ripper). The gathers there really don't give much in the way of pregnancy room (only 1" extra...perhaps because I tend to carry in front??? maybe??) and I thought it looked better without them.

 So, now at least I have a wearable blouse. The thing I'm proudest of is how I carefully picked the button hole/button strips off the fabric, did all my shortening, and then sewed them back in, and trimmed off the excess from the bottom.

And I found out if you block the flash part of the camera with your hand while taking mirror selfies, you get a fire effect...

Of Strollers and Rosettes: A Trip with the kids & Jenny's Ruffle Dress from a Refashioned T-Shirt

We went shopping. At first we went to the mall to get Josh work shoes, and found that it is very, very hard to wield 2 umbrella strollers and a baby with just 2 adults and no baby carrier.
The climax of the excursion was Isaiah getting to use the mall's restroom. Isaiah loves public restrooms. Josh does not. But such is fatherhood.

Many times, on our cross country car trip, Isaiah would announce the need, and we would pull into strange cities where our feet had never yet trod. Together they would go, father and son, Josh holding Isaiah's hand as he carried Isaiah's toilet seat bag, to face the great unknown of as yet unexplored potties.

Like this, except just with Isaiah.

They would always return victorious, Isaiah laughing and skipping along holding Josh's hand. Isaiah's face shining from the adventure. Josh's not so much.

Well, anyway, we were out at the mall, and Isaiah got to relive his Trip Adventures by going to the big new potty again.
Jenny was upset, that she didn't get to "go to potty!" too. I was heartless and denied her the joy of public restrooms. Unfortunately, her idea of "going potty" is charging bare bummed around the bathroom shrieking in laughter at mommy's attempts to catch her... So she remained in the stroller. And was indignant at the injustice in the universe.

But somehow, life went on. And it even included chocolate sandwich cookies.
We also found how to fit 3 kids into 2 little carts.

Jenny gives safety tips on how to wedge a car seat into a little craft cart.

There was a sweet old woman in the store. Her face lit up as she admired the kiddos. She told me she lives somewhere where there aren't kids, so its a treat for her to see them. Isaiah flirted with her, and waved goodbye when we left.

We were put on this earth to take care of each other. Too often we forget that, and live in our busy age-segregated lives.

The kids discovered Richard Scarry Videos. I love the books, the books are a must have for every parent, given the number of babysitting hours you get from a kid trying to find goldbug, not to mention the values and virtues in those books...

Jenny gets all emotional and cries in the part where Mr. Rabbit gets stuck in the wet hot sticky gooey asphalt. Not for any of the cute animals trying to get him out, not for Mr. Rabbit being stuck, but for a piece of road equipment. At the part where the tow truck breaks when trying to pull him out (it takes a power shovel), she laments "duh truck broke! due truck broke!" and cries for the truck.

The little one remains cute as ever. She is learning to tolerate the AZ heat, and will lie in a laundry basket staring thoughtfully up at the trees.

This is the closest you get to instant gratification in sewing. A ruffley comfortable little dress, as comfortable and as easy to wear/care for as a T shirt, because that's what its from.

Here was the previous version, a dress from a red shirt

The Pink One is pretty much the same thing, except from a single long sleeved women's medium shirt, its from a women's XL T-shirt. I had some green T-shirt fabric left over from a men's green T shirt I turned into a little T shirt for Isaiah.

  I just added a waistband, and a few simple rosettes (the internet abounds with tutorials on that) that I sewed together from the scraps and onto the waistband. I think it was a nice touch. I made the mistake of making the sleeve ruffles with even MORE fabric (just because I could) and I think they ruffle too much. I like the red sleeves better.

She says "Idaiah is a badguy. Jenny is a doodguy."

The pink one's skirt is fuller (XL width) than the red one's (M width), and I really like that. I like how it twirls when she moves around. She looked so cute going to church with "my hat!"

 

With Captain America. Who is of course, a goodguy.

Fixing A Tube Top Dress with Sleeves: A Practical Solution to refashioning my "honeymoon tube top dresses"

I fixed my tube top dresses, by refashioning them with sleeves. Now they are toddler-tug-safe!

Those tube top dresses I bought for my honeymoon...

I was going to get married. I WANTED to be cute. I  bought a bunch of tube top dresses and brightly peasant dresses to be pretty on my honeymoon. With the vague idea I would be wandering down Carribean beaches in them, with tropical flowers in my hair. Not the 10 day camping trip in the mountains that I had planned....

Full of Wonder, Rocks, and Mosquitos. Not the best place for beachy dresses

I never did wear those dresses on my honeymoon. I wore men's XL T-shirts with pants and a belt with a waterbottle hanging off it and felt medieval and awesome.
And to this day, the smell of bug spray reminds me of my honeymoon. And those tube top dresses sat unworn in my drawer...I never did wear them...

I discovered that whoever invented tube top dresses never had a toddler tugging down on their skirts.

So in the last couple of days, I refashioned them.
And the best part are that they are both nursing and pregnancy friendly :)

See? Toddlers!!!

Really really cute toddlers. Plus a baby.

A really really cute baby.

A Refashioned Dress: Moving Out to the Suburbs of Dorkville

So, in the time honored blogger tradition of taking a frumpy thrift store find and upcycling it into a cute little Mod-cloth-esque dress, I present:

MOVING FROM THE HEART OF DORKVILLE TO THE 'BURBS

I took this

And turned it into this

So basically I took it from the heart of Dorkville to the 'burbs of Dorkville. Or in other words in went from homeschooling mom to homeschooling mom. But I think its dorky with class in its reincarnation. There is an art to being a dork, after all.

It was a straight shirtwaist dress, floral print, with a collar. It took a little over an hour to

1.  Remove the collar (with a stitch ripper) and simply iron and fold the edges of the neckline and sew them back together sans collar.
2. cut the T-shirt sleeves to cap sleeves (I just chopped some off, and bound the edges with a long thin strip from the collar.)
3. Sew a strip of fabric to the inside back as a casing for elastic to gather it there and to give the bodice a tiny bit more shape
4. Hack off the dress a couple inches above the natural waist, and sew on a half-circle skirt from a thrifted sheet. Thankfully, the dress was loose enough that she can pull it on over her head, since the bodice extends a little past her waist, and its actually quite loose, the hint of fittedness actually comes from that bit of elastic at waist level in back. So I didn't have to extend the opening/closure into the skirt. Which was nice.

It's still definitely in the homeschooling mom camp, but I think its cute in its own dorky way.

A few more shots of the dress in action. And in case you are wondering, I didn't suddenly become photogenic, that's my twin, who is photogenic.