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Earlier this week I went thrift store shopping at a D.I. location near where I grew up. Funny thing, this was the first time I’ve ever been to that particular location. The goodies I found there were awesome. I even found a few things like a yellow velvet Anthro-style chair and an olive green pants jump suit that I didn’t buy. Among the awesome finds was the most hideous $6 drop-waist dress. I say hideous because it was all sorts of bulky in the middle with equally bulky bishop sleeves. I can’t do the billowy bishop sleeve, no matter how many times I try it. You know the feeling when clothes wear you, rather than the reverse? That was the tale of this dress. I mean, seriously. Look at the before photo:

Like how I’m covering up my face? I hadn’t put on my face or done my hair, so I looked pretty scary.

This dress has loads of potential, though. From the moment I saw it, i fell in LOVE with the fabric. I’m a sucker for greys and stripes. The best part about the pattern is that it goes well with blacks OR browns! I love the versatility. I’m also digging the doily decolletage decoration. It’s freaking sweet. I’m pretty sure that this dress was handmade. There were no tags and most of the seams weren’t finished with a Surger. Sweet!

Do I look like I’m in pain? I’m not putting any pressure on my left foot, because it was KILLING! Yowzas.

This project took me the bulk of yesterday to complete because Penelope didn’t nap much, laundry had to be done, I broke my toe and the dress needed loads of unpicking. I’m sure if the planets were all aligned yesterday it would’ve taken me under an hour to do the shirt, because it wasn’t very hard to do at all. Cutting and gathering the sleeves was pretty easy, adding the band on the bottom of the shirt was easier than hemming (in my opinion), it really boiled down to the deconstruction. That just took a lot of time.

I only planned on doing the shirt refashion, but there was so much fabric left over just screaming to be made into a dress for Penelope. I used one of Penelope’s old dresses as a guide. All I did was a little gathering at the waist, sew it onto some white jersey (for stretch) and add straps. I think she looks SO adorable in her new dress, but she wasn’t so happy about wearing it this morning. We had our first fight over clothes! Yup. She’s getting opinionated all of a sudden!

Today we wore our matching clothes to our play date with Alma & Oliver to the Tracy Aviary and Hatch’s Family Chocolates. We got a lot of attention at Hatch’s for our matching outfits, that was fun. Our little matchy-matchy day has gotten me so excited to plan our Easter outfits! I just need to find the right fabric for it.