Turn a Skirt into a Dress

 Or is it a pinafore?

repeat of an old photo in the old office from July 2020

Shelbee wanted me to post directions on how I did this transformation.
I looked through the skirts that need rehabbing. They require too much work! 

Here, instead, are close-up shots of the straps.

All hand stitched!

I used 1" width leopard print grosgrain ribbon. 

For the length, cut two longer than you think you'll need. Position with safety pins (inside or outside the waist of the skirt), put the skirt on, and fine tune the fit. Then, stitch!

Happy refashioning!

Linking up with 

Shelbee's Spread the Kindness

Big Orange

I love orange!

I've drawn my orange tube of paint:

I chose orange for my Stitching the World path:

that's Australia, BTW

Why am I going on about orange?

It's this month's theme for Shelbee and Nancy's "Good Buy/Good-bye Book"

This one was a Good Buy, it's an Indian skirt that I turned into a pinafore:

This one not so much:

2013
See how it's sticking to me?
Therein lies the problem!

2012 - even then, it annoyed me

To Poshmark it goes!

It so happens, I bought these both at the same shop in Artesia, CA. 

The shop, Cottage Arts, has closed, the owners retired. 

Sad face, happy wallet. 

Linking up with

Shelbee's Spread the Kindness

Mending Momentum

I left you "hanging by a thread" in my last post...
The rehab of the African textile into a tunic was ALMOST finished at the Mindful Mending workshop...
The next day, I used my mending momentum and took the materials to Otis with me -- I utilized the nice, big, EMPTY table  in the Otis Fashion Dept conference room:

DONE!

I was SO EXCITED that I finished, I popped it on over my outfit and took some iPhone selfies.

There was a problem, though. The textile smelled very musty and got worse with my body heat.

Then we had LOTS of rain, so I couldn't hang it outside to air out on the clothesline.

FINALLY, the weather cooperated.
I found online a suggestion to soak the fabric in vinegar to help remove the odor.
It worked a charm.

And then yesterday I was able to wear it to work:

I liked the look of the tunic over another tunic in my initial selfies, so I tried it over my denim button up.

My Indigo and Orange Symphony!

The Fluevog Enthusiasts played along perfectly.

Linking up with
Patti's Visible Monday
Catherine's #shareAllLinkup

52 Pick-me-up: Carrot / Perseverance

••• 

This orange "dress" is a study in Perseverance.
When I bought it, it was a skirt. [original post from 5/4/11]

sage tee from boyfriend, skirt from cottage art, chinese plastic sandals

Another take [original post from 5/18/11]:

Then I began wearing it as a dress(?), pinafore(?), whatever you want to call it.

[And here's where my computer's dying has caused way too many hurdles in writing this post.
Yes, it was all backed up -- but where do all the iPhoto uploads go? And how do I get to them?
It's a Mercury Retrograde mystery, my friends. Or a lesson in Perseverance.
Trying to use the Search Tool on the blog's sidebar was no help at all.]

Trust me, I've worn this skirt-dress many times.
I was going to show you, but you'll just have to imagine it.
The pairing with the lime maxi is a particular favorite.
Here's how I gussied it up for an Instagram:

Those silver fauxkenstocks really sing with the silver sequins.

Forgot to mention my linkup with Patti's Visible Monday. How rude of me.

Have you donned Carrot AKA Orange lately? Any recent acts of Perseverance?
Link and tell!

52 Pick-me-up: Honey / Service / Loyalty

•••

Did you enjoy seven weeks of RED? We will now embark on seven weeks of ORANGE.

Is "Honey" an orange color? That's debatable. I worked myself into such a tizzy this week over "What color is honey anyway?" (I even started a link-up over on the blog I manage for my gallery, to try to get some input from fine artists. Which nobody but myself has linked to, btw). I had a similar problem back in June, when I was selecting ALL the colors to put in the dots (you can see my handiwork on the 52 Pick-me-up page, which has the entire year of color prompts). Faced with HONEY, why exactly I choose a color that looks more like Naples Yellow? I don't remember.

Last Sunday at the local Farmers' Market, I kept my eye out for the honey vendors:

I realized a few minutes ago [well, now more than an hour], as I was working on the above image, if I suspend my preconceived notions of "honey color" and isolate that patch of color in the left side photo, to the left of the label, it IS orange! OMG! Lightbulb moment! And then that patch of fiery color in the Honey Bear, top right, ANOTHER ORANGE! [But then, looking forward, I also had to define "amber" and "topaz" for the YELLOW weeks. Aaaaaargh! OK. I'll stop nerding out on color. It's exhausting and it's too hot here in my unairconditioned house in SoCal].

Let's all take a deep breath, count to ten, exhale slowly.
Ah. Better.

So, before I fell down the HONEY rabbithole this morning, I had decided to feature "The Adventures of Melanie's Palette Pendant", which is full of all sorts of colors, maybe even "honey".
Here, with some of my other Vancouver Meet-up loot:

Melanie's works: appliqued on the giant tee-dress, the Palette Pendant, the CHAOS luggage tag, and the badge graphic.
All gifts.

Here it's paired with its mate, currently residing in Chicago with Pao.

[I can't remember who took this photo]

Here at the Getty. It kept flapping and flipping to the blank side, requiring constant adjusting. Very annoying.

(sunglasses' frames courtesy of Ditto)

"Hmmmm. Maybe the jump ring will fit on the Endless necklace." 
[See this previous post on how the Endless Jewelry Wrap Bracelet became a necklace]
Indeed it does!

Leather Wrap and small charms courtesy of Endless Jewelry

I wore it all day last Thursday, and I only removed it when I was in the car.

And then, circling back to the Naples Yellow Honey color issue there is the Orange Paisley Tunic!
With some (possibly) honey-color tortoise sunglasses that I'm selling on Poshmark!

I bought the Persol sunglasses back in the 90s.
My optometrist couldn't pop out the lenses to put my prescription in, so time to release them.

Let me tell you, all this searching for honey is making me feel like Winnie-the-Pooh.

Honey / Service / Loyalty, link and tell!

[Enid] D is for Dosa Scarf

ENID/

Transcription:

4.4 "D" 

Doomsday
Rumor has it that the Demented Diva has fired me.
Then why the F am I still in this F ing closet?
She's Desperate that's why. No one else will work for her.
The coworkers, working a Saturday Deadline, took pity and shoved a plate of Donuts through the Door.
Delighted, I'm sure.

52 Pick-me-up: Hat Trick

PURCHASED/ PURLOINED/ GIFTED 

This week is all about hats. Judith, the Style Crone, hosts "Hat Attack" on the first of every month.
She asks us to "...display your hat, headwrap, headpiece, fascinator, hair flower, headband or other adornment for your head..." This time the linky parties shall align, despite the fact that Mercury is still in retrograde.

I'm featuring my collection of ribbon hats.
They are made in China, I think with leftovers from apparel manufacturers. I bought them all at the 99 Cent Depot in Culver City, for $1.99!

[Screen capture from my Tumblr]

Here's the first one that I bought:

The ribbon is printed with this: "get wrapped in the fabric of MIMCO...........for frolicking"
What does that mean?

I played "match the hat" with a tee and scarf:

And:

And:

And:

And:

This last look has further permutations yet to occur. When they happen, you'll be the first to know.

My personal ribbon hat stack:

That's a drawing by Cidney Hochman behind the hats, not that you can see it.

What's your hat trick? Link and tell!

52 Pick-me-up: Marigold

PURCHASED/ PURLOINED/ GIFTED/

Get inspired by marigolds this week on 52 Pick-me-up. I love their orangey yellow color.

Link and tell!

52 Pick-me-up: Rococo

PURCHASED/ GIFTED/ 

It's Rococo week on 52 Pick-me-up.

Some inspiration for you:

François Boucher Portrait of the Marquise de Pompadour, 1756 

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing, 1767 

My outfit is less frothy than the two paintings above. 

I thought the print on the skirt had a rococo vibe:

It's a Leon Max skirt that I purchased in the early 90s.

Did you go rococo this week? Link and tell!

I'm linking up with Patti's Visible Monday.

52 Pick-me-up: Orchid

PURCHASED/ PURLOINED/ GIFTED/ 

This week, get inspired by orchids.

I was thinking of this Oncidium:

source 

When I wore this:

Linking up with Patti's Visible Monday

52 Pick-me-up: Dress Like a Libation

PURCHASED/ PURLOINED/ LINKS/

Here is this week's 52 Pick-me-up directive: Dress like your favorite cocktail.

Can you guess mine?

Hint:

photo by Sarah of Call Me Fudge

I'm a (virgin) Tequila Sunrise!
This was my drink of choice when I was going out to see LA pop shows in the 90s.
That is, if I bothered to pay for a beverage. Usually I didn't drink anything, so that I could avoid nasty rest rooms.

Here's Call Me Fudge's Tequila Sunrise recipe:

TEQUILA SUNRISE
(makes 1 drink)

2 oz. tequila
4 oz. orange juice
3/4 oz. grenadine

1.  Fill a high ball glass with ice.  Pour in tequila and orange juice.

2.  Slowly pour in grenadine and allow it to separate and settle at the bottom.

3.  Stir before sipping!

I found Sarah's site through a Google Image search. What a fun blog!

OK, put down that drink, link, and tell!

Dress like your favorite cocktail

Dress like your favorite cocktail

An InLinkz Link-up

Go with the [Remote] Flow

LINKS/ CREATED/ PURCHASED/

So I did some twirling experimentation with my new iPhone remote that I helped fund in an Indiegogo campaign
[now they are on Kickstarter if you'd like to get one]

Some of the results:

this is what I actually wore on Saturday

For some reason, it takes a smaller resolution image, which is a drawback for outfit shots.

I've added the link-up for this week's 52 Pick-me-up "Go with the Flow: Long, Loose, and Drapey" below for your convenience.

Meanwhile, I'm floating on over to Patti's Visible Monday. Come with!

Sunday = Fun Day: Virtual Astro Targets

Today's "outfit" comes from a completely random Facebook Page suggestion!
(Yes, sometimes those annoying FB "improvements" will yield something worthwhile).

Fasten your seat belts, this one has lots of twists and turns!

After "Liking" a RI travel consultant
(because a friend had shared her photo gallery of vintage Naragansett hotel post cards)
some suggestions for other Pages came up (new thing that I never saw until this morning).
I hovered over the target avatar and it displayed:

Arts/Humanities?
HAD to click on it! It was a TARGET! (Colorscope FB Page)
Not only a target, but an ASTROLOGICAL TARGET!!!

link for colorscope

Here is mine: Hard to look at, right?

What can I say, they are my favorite colors... I HAD to create a repeat with them! And mock it up on myself!

I located this photo from a shopping expedition in Venice CA from 2011 -- look how it matches "my" target colors so perfectly!

I first did some Photoshop [PSD] retouching and got rid of the red + blue motifs
I'm not showing you that because it was fast + sloppy

Then I went over to Illustrator [AI] and created my repeat:

are you hypnotized yet?
It's no genius repeat, but it'll do

Then I brought my photo into AI to create the areas to apply the print
(I used the pen tool -- I did it in AI because it's easier to scale + rotate repeats in AI vs PSD)

Here's what I came up with:

The green happened from it being 3 layers of print with a transparency effect applied.
I was OK with it

I then exported just the print layers over to PSD, to soften up the print a bit.
This is my final opus:

ADORE IT!!!
The color didn't shift in the same way, OK by me

Don't be surprised if you find me actually wearing this come summer!

I'm linking up with Patti's Visible Monday -- I think I'll be stopping traffic with this one!

Meanwhile, what's your Astro Target?
Please share on my SpyGirl FB Page!
or
leave a link below in the comments

Have a celestial day!