So I’m sitting here on a warm Sunday when I might’ve been forced to work and instead I’m listening to oldies in a language I don’t understand. Makes me feel like I should have an Audrey Hepburn up-do and everything should be in black and white.
I had the fun idea this morning of making a latchwork rug out of the thousand of t-shirt scraps I have left over from my as-yet-unfinished t-shirt blanket. These little projects seem to just keep piling up.
So I get dolled up in a new-to-me sundress handed down from my mom and set out for HoLo only to discover that it’s SUNDAY. HoLo is sooo closed on Sunday. It wasn’t a completely wasted trip because I had about 8 garbage bags worth of donation clothes also from my mom so I decided to get them off my hands sooner rather than later. I walk into the Women’s Shelter hoping to find someone to direct me to the drop-off place and I feel pretty conspicuous standing around in my hot-melon-pink sundress so I start to browse. Of course.
Not only did I find a nice pair of Rampage sandles for about 5 bucks, but also three dresses. One, in a style I’d been hunting for since seeing my roommate’s retro black with white polka dots confection (boning in the bodice!), one a good friend of mine had seen at Victoria Secret’s website AND in her size (X-small, so THAT was a match made in heaven), and the last one was a risk. A big risk. It needed… editing. You know I love me some editing.
There are things about this dress I like and things I am not so fond of. The good points are that it is a bright cerulean blue 100% silk and fully lined. Yay and yay.
The neck is a square cut vertically pleated doohickey that I’ve come to like and the back is high enough to cover up my tattoo. Gotta love options in formal wear. The MAJOR downfall of this dress is that it had enough pleating to make it a little too grandma-wore-this-in-the-60’s for my taste. (Even though my grandma wouldn’t have been caught dead in this in the 60’s.) And it had poofy sleeves with tight 3/4 length cuffs that not only didn’t close around my man arms, but also were too Sunday School teacher. I use the past tense here because I have already hacked those suckers off. I couldn’t twist my arms around enough to zip it all the way up with the sleeves on so they HAD to come off. Then I tried it on and managed to unhinge my arms from my shoulders enough to get it zipped all the way up. Here are some photos for referencing.
The icky sticky arms.
Pardon the terrible photo quality. These all had to be taken from my cellphone because my camera cord is apparently extinct.
There were a lot of different tutorials for dealing with silk hems. (I’m not crazy enough to attempt a silk fabric without a little research) I finally decided on an iron-on tape. This makes me a little nervous because I want it to look good, but I also want to be able to trust it (iron-on tape has failed me before). After about an hour of delicately (and later, not-so-delicately) pulling stitches so as not to damage the fabric:
Halfway through I started shaking like an alcoholic and cursing.
I folded my new hemlines and followed these tutorials:
Iron-on tape hems: http://www.ehow.com/how_8726870_hide-hem-stitching-delicate-fabric.html
Blind stitching silk: http://www.ehow.com/how_8239711_hem-silk.html
After scalding myself a few times on the iron and generally cursing fate, this is the result of one arm hem with JUST the iron-on tape:
Not too shabby, eh? If it gives me issues I’m going to do a blind stitch to secure the iron-on tape, but for now I’m done. If I do the stitch I’m going to need to pick up cerulean thread and, as I said, HoLo is sadly closed today. *moment of silence*
Some useful tips: ALWAYS keep your iron moving when ironing silk. That might be a dur moment, but I now have iron-shaped creases on my fabric that I have to go over again. Bah humbug. Also, pull stitches in bright light. Or take three Advil. Your choice.
This entire project for me was the cost of the dress, 8.99 so even if I end up giving this away, it was worth it.
Now that delicate, lady-things are out of my system, I have to go kill some virtual zombies. Please excuse the mess.
for each ecstatic instant 