Vintage lace dress rehab

I bought this dress in 2006 or 2007 from a vintage shop on Magazine St in New Orleans that was going out of business. It was cheap because the lace was falling apart. I wanted to do a genius "before/after" post for you, but I failed! I know I took pictures in it before I repaired the lace, but I can't find them in the ten billion folders of pictures on my computer. 

Before, it had a sheer, skin-color net overlay up to the neck that buttoned in the back. The lace was extremely tattered, especially around the armpits and sides. 

Last winter (?) sometime I spent hours patching up the lace with hand sewing and Fray-chek. 

Then, I tried it on and realized that while the waist and hips fit, the chest was desperately and pitifully loose. Then I added it to the pile of shame and ignored it for a year. 

 I finally dug it out. I needed to take in the boobs quite a bit. No, a lot. A ton. Like 2 inch pinches on each side. At least 4 inches total. Who was this lady with her real hourglass figure? Damn her!

This required taking out the side zip and putting it back in. Done.

 It has this interesting drape on one side of the back only. The dress is probably rayon. It is handmade, I think. All the seams are pinked inside and there are no tags.

This could also be called "having fun with the self-timer on my new camera" time. I really don't know where I would wear this dress.... oh well. One less unfinished project in the dresser.

Here's a close-up of the detail:

One down, three more projects to share!

Oh, hai! 80s pants refashion/ Goodbye New Orleans!

I originally bought these pants at an estate sale in May. I thought it was more recent, but I had to go way back on the blog to find a link. They were terribly 80s in the worst way- high, tight waist, peg legs, poofy hips. In a word, sexy. Ha!

Stephanie and I have spent too much time discussing that extremely short shorts seem to be "in" right now, based on how many I see everywhere. I thought this would be an excellent refashion, to make these pants into short, sexy shorts. As a joke, obviously. We also wore our matching Oscar the Grouch shirts, bought at Walmart on a beach trip. I made them into shorts by hacking them off about 1 inch below the crotch and then fancying them up with my pinking shears. Oh la la!

We went to a colorful, local playground to highlight the delicious colors of our outfits. 

Oh hai!

This is by far the best picture- in the air and we even managed to touch hands!

This was the "try to slide without burning the flesh off of your legs" picture

All in all, it was a fun last photo shoot in New Orleans!

I am now officially in Chicago and setting up the house. Bleh moving is un-fun! We now have an enormous apartment that is pretty great, but it has no mini-blinds. Also, there is an enormous Jo-Ann about 5 minutes away. Yay! So expect to see many before/after curtain posts over the summer. I am starting to sew cold weather clothes already. I doubt I will need any more sundresses.