I got a box of goodies from my girls, Rachel and Tiffany and have a remake today that was one of the fab items that they sent me. Hello leopard print!!
Here's what R/T shared with me:
We hope you enjoy these lovely pieces. My friend Tiffany and I have been following your blog since you were featured in a Yahoo news article. We started going to thrift shops, garage sales, and Goodwill. We've made over several items but we always seem to forget to take pictures of the before. These pieces all came from one of our thrift stores. It employs and supports adults with disabilities and they often run $5 for a bagful, so these items were probably around $1 each. Enjoy and we look forward to seeing what ideas you'll have for these beauties! -Rachel and Tiffany
I LOVE the animal print, so I couldn't wait to get to work on this dress!
I was playing around with the dress and finally decided on turning this into a halter dress! I began by cutting off the top portion of the dress, starting right below the arms.
Using the center seam as my guide, I folded each side of the front down at a 45 degree angle to the area below the arms where I cut. Post trim, I pinned the edges under.
To keep this area in place, I stitched both sides in place on my machine.
To make the actual halter, I pinned the top area of the dress under leaving about a 3/4" seam allowance. I need this space to feed my ribbon through that will hold the dress up.
I stitched the top portion in place as well as taking in the sides where the sleeves were trimmed off, just a smidge, to avoid any side boob action!
Once everything was stitched, I took some tan grosgrain ribbon that meshed with all the different browns in the dress...
...and pulled it through the seam I just sewed.
My dress was now ready to wear!!
I paired the dress with a vintage brown leather belt, a thrifted straw tote bag, and my flip flops!
This dress is perfect for the hot days we've been having!!
However, I could live in halter dresses all the time. I love the exposed back, just for staying cool!!
I ended up wearing my dress for a gathering of some of my favorite people. One of my BFFs hosted a little dinner party at my casa which was a little weird because while she was cooking in my kitch, I was working at my kitchen table. I had to give my kitchen away for the night and I must say, it's kind of amazing letting someone else cook in your house. I mean, she forced me to work while she was rocking out some homemade marinara sauce.
It was probably for the best...I've never made a sauce from scratch (what?!?!) and not sure that I'd nail it my first go. She's Italian and grew up only having homemade sauce, so I think it's totally in her blood. And not shocking at all, when we all sat down to eat, the sauce was the first thing to go. I put more on my bread than I did on my pasta! I totally felt like I was channeling my inner Carmela Soprano with my mix of leopard print and Italian food.
Thank you so much, Rachel & Tiffany for sending me this fab piece - I'll be getting to the rest of your garments soon!
