Refashionin' it up

So this is a refashion that I did a few months back. I LOVE it. Unfortunately, it shrunk a bit in the wash (might have been dry clean only ... I don't follow "rules" as often as I should when it comes to laundry. Call me wild.) ... so I need to update it with something at the bottom. But still, LOVE.

Here's what it looked like when I thrifted it ($3, what, what?):

Jealous of the sexy? Kindly ignore the dust under the couch. It's clean now.

So, sure. It was a little to the left of hideous. But I adored the buttons and the lacy collar could be utilized better. The shoulder pads, obviously, had to go, but the dress had POCKETS. I mean. Come on. How do you pass up casual pockets?

Alright, so here's my dirty secret. I don't know how to work my sewing machine. I got one for our wedding and it's been collecting dust. I learned to use a sewing machine in 6th grade home ec, but man, that's been a while. I've gotten good at sewing by hand.

So, for this dress I used hem tape and my two hands.

Here's the after:

Look! A white crayon!

Not bad, right? I took off the collar and used the gorgeous lace as pocket details, removed the shoulder pads and made the neckline v-shaped. I also shortened the dress quite a bit, which really helped the overall look.

I'm so happy with this dress. I was able to keep the parts of it that I loved (look at the buttons!), and make it age-appropriate. Love.