I have a confession

I admit it openly, as much as I love girly dresses and toe cleavage high heels, I am just not someone that wears them. I am not comfortable in them so I have them in my closet and look at them but they do not ever make it off the hanger and onto my body to leave the house. I look up to those women that can successfully pull it off and bow down to their fashion greatness.

My friend Sara can pull off these great looks, she has the beauty, body and the seamstress prowess that it takes to make anything look amazing! So when she started the Jamie Dress Sew Along and posted pics of herself in the dress it was like looking in a fashion magazine and thinking...I can look like that too! Never mind that I am 20 years her senior and 20 (cough) pounds heavier, the dress was so cool looking on Sara I had to have one too! And so I started it!

I have never made anything for me to wear. This was to be my first attempt at sewing a garment and after a few frantic messages to Sara on pattern placement I was really ready to try.

 Cutting it out was easy enough.

Then I was able to get the bodice together and was pretty impressed with myself.

I was feeling very accomplished and proud of myself until it came to the skirt! There was so much fabric so I had to stop and make more frantic messages to Sara asking if it would ruin the dress to downsize the amount of fabric in the skirt. She told me to make sure to try it on first. After that I hacked at the skirt fabric and was much more pleased with the result. Until I put the dress on. It was then I realized WHY I cannot wear this style of dress comfortably. It makes me look matronly  :/ I am very realistic about what does and does not look good on me and this DID NOT! I loved the bodice. It is fitted and lovely very good for my body type. I wanted to use what I had worked so hard for and not have it just sit in the closet.

In comes my friend Andy!!!!!!!She brought muffins and a new perspective!!!!!!

and a really cute Goodwill find to show and tell :o) Isn't this too cute!

Back to the dress, Andy is the same body type as I am on a much smaller scale, I am 5-7 and she is maybe 5-3? She saw my concerns and asked a simple and brilliant question...

"Can you make it into a shirt?"

YES!!!!! I can keep what I love about the dress and make it into a tunic type shirt!!!!! 

THANK YOU ANDY!!!!!

And this is what I came up with :o)

( please excuse the horrible pictures, it is raining and I had to take these myself)

I love the bodice I used the med but I think I may try the small:?

full top shot that has not been hemmed since I am still deciding how long to make it.

Without the Kermit the Frog sweater

I will be making another one and cutting more fullness out of the "skirt" portion ( it is still too poofy for my full bottom half) and giving it a more pleated look but overall I love it and cannot wait for summer!!!!

I am linking this to Quilt Story Fabric Tuesday
I would put a cute button here but I am just not that advanced :/

Kim :o)