Week 14: Linda

Happy Golden Globes!  I'm a sucker for awards shows - I'm a total film buff and I love watching the dresses come down the red carpet and seeing what everyone picks from the colors to the jewelry and the hair.  Also, I love betting in the prize pools to try and guess the highest amount of winners.  I'm usually off, however this year I've seen most of the nominees and feel like I'm coming from a more educated place instead of the usual 'if Dame Judi Dench is nominated, she'll always win' stand.

Today's dress comes from Linda and because of what she was inspired by, it was the perfect piece to use!

"Dear Marisa,  I live in Great Falls, MT, but originally a "valley girl" from Santa Ana, CA.  I recently saw the movie The Help, and the enclosed dress reminds me of the 60s.  I debated over this dress and a church lady dress, but I thought the colors in this dress would look fantastic on you!  Have fun, I can't wait to see what you come up with.  I enjoy your creations so much!"

Now in my logging, the actual before photo of the dress was not with the documents I kept, so I'm using this photo instead as the before shot - it had the same shape and similar length of the one that Linda sent my way, so it will suffice.  Apologies!

Here's a close up of the actual fabric to get the 60s idea!

Since Linda was reminded of The Help with this piece and the Golden Globes are tonight with The Help up for awards, I felt this a perfect piece to work with!!

I began with the length...  I took my scissors and chopped off about two feet from the bottom of the piece.

I'm going for a top instead of the dress, so I did a little bit of tucking...

...then pinning and folding to get the new bottom of the piece ready for stitching.

The body of the dress was a bit big on me and I wanted to give it more shape, so I took it in about two inches on each side.  I followed the shape of the seam that was there already to make it snugger around my waist.

There was a lot of extra fabric leftover, so I took a strip about three inches...

...and gave it a pretty seam.   This is going to be a little belt that I'm going to just knot in the front of the piece.  After my belt was stitched...

...I fixed the hem and had a top ready for the awards!!

The V-shape was there already, but just making this a bit more snug made all the difference.  It reminded me of a shirt I saw at Banana Republic a few summers ago and had that same lineny-sheen feel and look to it.

The crew of friends got together to watch, comment, and...

...eat!!

From homemade pizzas to meatball sandwiches, I had a feast fit for a queen, or the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who Meryl Streep won the globe for portraying!

The final tally...I was one of the pool winners!!  Woo, because this doesn't ever happen!!  We all tied with 14 correct answers and I thank George Clooney and Downton Abbey for being awesome enough to choose as my winners.

Speaking of winners (on the fashion front)...

I LOVED Charlize Theron's blushy Dior gown and I even liked the headband.  I know there were others at my shindig who totally disagreed on the headgear, but I was on board.

Claire Danes looked stunning!

I watched the entire season of Homeland in 36 hours, because I became addicted after the third episode.

My third fave was Nicole Kidman in Versace.  It's patterned, beaded, and totally different than anything else that was worn.  There were definitely people who thought I was crazy for loving, but I've always been a fan of Nic's choices and me thinks she's rocking it.

Unfortch, I was not digging Jessica Biel's dress.  It looked like one of my 'before' shots...

...and Meryl.  Ooh, it was like she had a lace embellished western shirt on with that skirt, but I do think that pocketed skirt is fantastic.

Just a few thoughts on my end - who were your favorites?  Thank you Linda for sending me this awesome piece!!

Week 14: Johanna

Today's piece comes from Johanna... I figured because the Golden Globes are tonight, this golden sweater would fit right in.  (Get it, golden!)  Plus it's a sweater and it's January, so it works for winter as well!

"I got invited to my friend's annual holiday party, which this year had a theme of "Merry & Bright."  We were told to bring our sequins, glitter, shine, etc.  I knew that I didn't want to go out and buy something sparkly that I would likely never wear again, so, I hit the local Goodwill and found this interesting cream & gold sweater, clearly from the 80's.

Best of all, it was 50% off, so only cost me $2.50.  

Time to see the magicalness of this $2.50 purchase!

I cut up the center, cutting around the "lovely" embroidery and neck.  I then resewed that edge, up the to neck and back down.  I took in the sleeves a bit and trimmed the excess to use as a tie.

I threw a festive green tank under it, with some dark jeans and headed to the party.  Got several compliments on it.  :)   Never would have thought to do this little project had it not been for your blog.  THANK YOU!!!"

Johanna, I'm loving the new sweater!!  The removal of that bit of embroidery made all the difference - I'd be wearing this all the time!  Thanks for sharing your creativity and awesome work.  You're the quintessential Golden Girl, J!!

Week 14: Katie

"Here's something that I think you can have some fun with!  White, beaded, silk, long...it's fine now, but I want you to make it fantastic!  This came from my mom's bag of hand-me-downs that I just don't have the stamina to try and fix.  I will it to you...  Thanks for all the inspiration you give each day.  I am always amazed at what you do and I just can't wait until your book comes out!  Affectionately yours, Katie" Alrighty!  Today's dress from Katie (shout out to TN!) was one that I thought could work as a reserved wedding dress, one to use when striking those vows at City Hall, kinda like when Carrie and Big did it for reals.  (Yeah, that was a Sex and the City movie reference that I'm surprised I actually remembered enough to call out)

Mine...

Hers...

The dress was silk with these gorgeous pearly beads stitched down on top of a lace bib and the silky material had pretty feathers stitched on it, however it was so hard to see being white.

I'm not headed to City Hall any time soon, unless I get called into jury duty, so this needs a small tweak!!  I knew that this was a job for RIT dye to knock out of the park!!

I grabbed my dye - Denim Blue - and my Morton's Salt!!

I started a hot water wash in the washing machine, added in the dress to get it wet and soaked, threw in some salt, and then added the dye.  (Make sure the piece is wet prior to dye addition - usually adding dye first is key, but I switched it up a bit today!)

The dress had a little water aerobatics lesson before coming out looking like a brand new girl!!  (Post dye-wash, I ran another 0ne to clean it out in case of any leftover dye.  I threw in my denims at the same time...two birds with one stone!)

I immediately became obsessed with the outcome that I didn't make any further adjustments post-dye.

My original intentions were to shorten, adjust the sleeves, but I just couldn't bring myself to do anything because I was kind of in love with what I got.

Check out the close-up-awesomeness!!  I loved how the dye took to the bead work and the little bit of lace detail up top!  You couldn't even tell that this was there beforehand.

While picking up lunch, I took an instagram photo on the street and the pearls just shine!!

With my red boots, the denim blue-dyed dress made up today's ensemble.

I pose a question to you guys...anyone want a little more tweaking on this?  Shall I take this further?  Let me know what you think and depending on the majority, I'll do a part II where we get a little more crazy!!

Thank you to Miss Katie and thank you to RIT for making my new favorite dye shade!

TGIF!!