Saturday, August 27, 2011

Thinking outside the box...

What would you do if you came across a super cute dress on Clearance at Old Navy and it had a huge rip in it? Put it back and let the next lady who picked it up get it for a great steal and think outside the box to fix it? Maybe you wouldn't...I would hope not. But someone did, and that's how I ended up with it. The best part is, that Old Navy had a sticker on this baby girl dress for $4.49, and because it was damaged, I got it for an additional 50% off. Who could pass that up, really? But it has been sitting in my craft stuff with all my other UFO's (What my MIL calls them, short for Un-Finished Objects, I think...) until yesterday. See, I need to pack up the house (yes, again) and I decided to start with the easiest room (the one with the least amount of stuff in it.) Which happens to be the extra bedroom with my craft stuff. So I started pulling the bins out of the closet in order to reorganize and cosolidate to use the least amount of bins possible, and of course, once the fabric bin opened up, there was no stopping me. It's addiction really. I like to pull out all the nicely folded fabrics and match them up with different ones to see if I can mix something better than the stacks I had previously put them in. Then I came across my damaged baby girl dress and thought, I'm doing it. And really, why I hadn't I done it a long time ago? It didn't take that long at all. Maybe an hour total (longer when you have to stop to feed a baby, change a diaper, and pick up a kiddo from the bus stop...) Anyway, here it goes...

The dress had a huge tear in it. Probably from some kid in high school working an after school job at Old Navy who hasn't learned to lift the boxes lids when using a box cutter so you don't damage the merchandise inside. So I could've gone about this a few different ways, I thought about usign fabric glue, but then I would've had to go and purchase some. I was trying to keep the cost of this project as little as possible. I mean, I'd hate for all the extras cost me more than the dress itself (a mere $2.25). So I use a zig-zig stitch and just patched it up. I also could've used some navy blue thread...which I still can if I ever come across any in my sewing stuff (but I'd had to go searching) but I also only had a limited amount of nap time, which would've been wasted in my searching efforts.
 These were the supplies I started with. Dress - $2.25, Jumbo RicRac - $1, Extra Scrap Material - FREE (thanks to my fabric addiction enabling MIL Laurie!)
 First I folded a piece of paper in half and layed in on my dress. That way I could put the fold of the paper in the center of the dress and have a perfectly symetrical apron.
 I cut out the template and layed it on a double stacked layer of my fabric so I only had to cut once. This picture isn't accurate. I refolded my fabric to be right sides together so I wouldn't have to do that once I cut the pieces. Plus, when I refolded and pressed it, I didn't have to pin a thing because the heat held the fabric together really well.
 I sewed all the way around with a quarter inch stich and left a small 2 inch opening for turning. But NOT until after I clipped my curves for the best curvature possible when folding it right side out.
 Then I pressed again.
 I placed the apron on my dress had held the RicRac in place. I decided I just didn't like it. So I cut more of my fabric. A 2.5" strip (sorry, no picture) that I folded in half, sewed one end closed all the way to the other end and turned it right side out. Then pressed it.
 I pinned the sash in place. Then went to pick up kiddo from the bus.
 When I got back, I got him a snack and went back to it. I sewed it in place (with some trial and error I must ad) and there you have it. A $2.25 + hour of your time dress. That would've sat and sat and sat at Old Navy until someone else thought of something to do if you didn't think outside the box!

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