Flip This Dress: OOTD

You may remember this vintage find from a few months ago:

Well I flipped it a few weeks and and now finally am wearing it - I wish I didn't wait this long, because I love it!  I removed the school-marm sleeves and clean finished them underneath that little shoulder fold.  I kept that detail because I think its cool.  Then I shortened the whole thing by about 9 feet.  Then I added a little bias strip at the bottom edge for a little fun detail.  Excuse the terrible iPhone pics, I misplaced the camera once again...

  This is tall-me wearing it.

Vintage Haul

Chris and I went to brunch in Brooklyn yesterday with some great friends, and then hit one of my go-to vintage stores for dress-flipping.  We were on a time crunch (aka: I had to pee and there were no bathrooms.  I blame the mimosas), so it was a quick look through the racks.  I grabbed these three dresses and can't wait to get flipping!

 Another great beaded sack  - I'm thinking of a peplum for this.

  A lovely maroon & white prairie frock:  this is going to make a light and airy sundress or layering piece.  

  My favorite find - its very simple, but its in my new favorite color - mint! NO idea what I'm doing with this, so I'm going to have to give this one a good think. I'm open to your ideas!

DIY Thursday / Flip this Sweater

Guys.  We are one day away from Friday.

So this DIY Thursday is actually a flip that is very easy to do-it-yourself.

I got this sweater a few months ago from Cotton On and I thought I loved it.  I wore it once for Thanksgiving, and clearly did not love it as much:

 

Its just very droopy and the sleeves are too long, and so you'd think it was a more oversized look, only its too short for that.  Its just an odd shape all around.  

So let's make a cardigan!

 

Step 1:  Take a look at your odd sweater one last time.  Find the center of the front (I just used a stitch line for guidance) and cut that sucker down the middle.

 

Step 2: Cut off the sleeves at the seam.  Now you can see just how much extra room there is at the sides of this sweater.  Sew with serger or zig-zag stitch excess fullness off the sides.  I took about 2" off each side.

 

Step 3:  Sew the sleeves back on.

Step 4: Try on the almost-finished project and mark where you want to cut off those go-go gadget sleeves.  Finish the sleeves and the front edges of the sweater with serger and fold over.  Press (I put a piece of cotton over it just in case the metallic melted) and hem with zig-zag stitch.

Tada!

 

You can easily do this with any old sweater you have lying around that isn't getting as much wear as it should.  This way, I can pair an awesome gold cardigan with any blah outfit and I have instant sparkle.

 

(eyeballing Lady)

Have fun sweater-flipping.

Flip This Dress: Cat is Getting a Skirt

So many Cats!  A pal of mine, also named Cat, was gifted this lovely little vintage party dress, but felt she'd get more use out of it as a skirt (a girl after my own heart - I'll be blogging about a similar situation in tomorrow's DIY Thursday post).

After!:

(Before)

This was a fairly simple flip.  I chopped off the top (that's extremely colorful language for just using a pair of scissors to gently cut) about 2 1/2" above the waistline piping.  This was a really pretty detail that we wanted to keep .  I then serged the edge and folded down, stitching right above the piping.  I also swapped out the old zipper since it was old and not functioning as it should. I tacked on a hook above the zipper and ta-da! Skirt.

 

 

(how pretty is this embroidery?)

Cat, hope you love it!

Flip This Dress: Golden Girls Dress Edition

Here is the final product.  I feel as though in a past life, the original design of this dress is something that Blanche Devereaux would wear on a sassy senior date.  The flipped version is something that Cat Munzing may wear to a sassy wedding on sunday.

I really am happy with how it came out.  There was a lot of beading damage, so the most time spent was hand beading the seams and other random places.  I basically chopped the dress in half and played with it on the form until it started looking like something I liked.  I added the little cap sleeve at the end because I didn't want any of the beautiful beadwork going to waste when I was finished.  And who doesn't love a cap sleeve?

Pretty gorgeous beading, right?

Happy New Year!

...so I'm a day late, but there was a lot of pajama-wearing and couch-sitting happening that got in the way of posting.

I'm working on flipping this dress that I found for $10 at L-Train Vintage in Brooklyn:

Here's the work in progress:

And you'll have to wait until tomorrow for the finished product!




Wishing you all a happy and healthy new year...

 

Flip This Dress: Shimmer Addition - done!

If you don't remember the original dress, here it is.

And here is the finished product:

Chrissie, I hope you love it and can't wait to see a pic of you in it (and then blog about it)!

Flip This Dress: Shimmer Edition

Oh hey guys.

I'm flipping a dress today for an old college bud named Chrissie ('old' meaning 'college was a long time ago', not 'old' as in 'adult education student').  She found this amazing vintage dress, but wanted to tailor it to her own taste.  We emailed back and forth for a few days, sending inspiration images, sketches, etc.

Here is the original dress:

And here is the concept for the flip (clearly I can't draw feet or hands to save my life):

 

Can't wait to see how it turns out? I know, the suspense is killing me too.  Check back in soon!