Refashioned 80s Dress for Outfit Number 20

Well, here's a great 80s dress in the $5 bin at my fave second hand store on King Street, SCRAGS! They always have a great bargain basket out the front for trendsetters to find odd cheapie bits. I saw the fabric first of course, but what a Joan Kirner number!!! check it:



And the sleeve detail:



So, I took it home and thought about it for a bit. I wanted it really short, but it needed some taking in... I did the side seams first (about 3 inches on both sides, leaving the sleeves as normal, which was tricky) and then it was still a little baggy, so I put some DARTS in the BACK! Yep, am super impressed with my skills there! Just two on either side of the zipper. I didn't want to touch the zipper as it was really long and in perfect condition, so the darts are about 10 inches long and I curved them a bit. Clipping the curves of course! What do you think?




For the hem, I kept it about 4 inches longer, ironed it flat where I wanted it to sit and then BLIND STITCHED THE HEM! I'm super happy with it, as I've never blind stitched anything before. My sewing book said that a machine could do it with the right 'foot' but I only have a normal foot and a zipper foot, so was stuck there, but luckily the same book explained how to do it by hand, and voila! A blind hem (that's kinda chunky, so to keep the dress from flying away) - YAY!

Now I just need to be invited out to a red carpet affair and I can rock it out perfectly!

Oh, and this is a great time to introduce a little side project! Nina Las Vegas and I have started an op shop blog, we started mailing each other pics of our op shop finds and so we set up POPTRASHED - a found items kinda blog of show and tell! We've opened up the blog for numerous authors, so if you're keen to get involved and you live in Sydney, then let me know!

I'm at veronicadarling AT gmail DOT com and I got the idea from the Melbs group I Op Therefore I Am, so thanks guys over there!