Second-hand dresses to sweet summer frocks

Koren teaches me to sew in a straight line. Note: huge glasses of red wine were required.

Yay for summer. Hot sunny days, warm balmy nights, watermelon, sangria, picnics in the park, holidays, (vegan) bbqs, Christmas, my birthday and sweet little dresses. What’s not to love?

Like every girl, I like to have lots of pennies for summer fun and wear lots of cute outfits while having said fun.

I’m no Einstein but here’s a little equation I think we can all understand:

Second-hand dresses + a sewing machine + a good sister (thanks Koren, love ya guts) =
happy wardrobe and happy wallet

Ok, so I hadn’t used a sewing machine since grade 8 (that’s like seventeen years ago) and what i did here was definitely NOT rocket science. But, hey, a few bucks later I have three unique sweet summer dresses to swan around in. And it goes to show, you don’t need to be some sort of wizz on the sewing machine.This guy was a rather large, moo-moo-style number which definitely wasn’t going to win fashion awards any time soon. But the fabric reminded me of a top Mum used to wear when I was little-Alana and I couldn’t put it down.

With a dash of imagination, some hem hitching and, most importantly, a belt I ended up with this.

Isn’t the fabric on this sweety just adorable?

But the hemline, not so adorable.

Bit of a snip, bit of a tuck and ta-dah!

I found this sweet dress in an op shop in the Adelaide Hills when staying with our older sister, Candy. I forgot to take a decent before photo but here’s a dodgy Instagram shot.

You can’t see from the photo but this guy had stains all down the front. Plus the layered neckline was totally unflattering as was the hemline. I gave it a good soak, unpicked the neckline, snipped off a couple of inches from the bottom then sewed everything back together.

Ready or not summer, here I come.

Love Alana xx