Fancy New Dress

We have gone out two nights in the past week and both nights I've worn this little number, newly constructed from four thrift store shirts (Total cost: about $3).



I really dig the horses print -the colors grab me. When I put it with the turquoise my heart just melted.



This was so easy to do - just four seams on the serger, and a few side adjustments. I love the way I feel when I have it on.

Linen and sweater skirt

At the thrift store I bought a pretty salmon colored cotton sweater with a beautiful knit pattern. It was a terrible cut but lovely knitting. Also at the thrift store I found a raspberry colored linen skirt that had cute pockets but was just too short. This weekend in a flash of inspiration I saw that they should be together and this was the result! I love the gentle scallop to the bottom edge, and tone-on-tone color schemes are very hip right now. I'm super pleased, and I have another linen skirt and sweater combo to try this out again this weekend. As a bonus, the sweater arms were chopped off to make some matching arm warmers...

Quilt in a skirt

Ok, technically not a quilt, since there's no quilting. But patchwork that's not frumpy is still pretty exciting! I appliquéd one of my randomly sewn strips to a linen skirt from the thrift store. I'm pretty pleased. I had thought it might make the skirt stiff, or mess with the drape of the bias, but the skirt still feels nice and skirty. I may have made the strip a little too wide, especially at the top. I can't wait to find another good skirt for altering to try it again!

Thrift store upgrade

This is probably my favorite shirt in the world. I bought the shirt from a thrift store for $1, then added the flowers with free motion quilting. I had a piece of Paper Solvy underneath to stabilize while I stitched, and that stuff just washes away in water. The red fabric came from an old tee shirt. Wearing clothing I've "made" always feels so good to me.