Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Spring Green Coat!

After five years, my white winter coat was looking a little worse for wear. Dry cleaning wasn't doing the trick anymore and it just looked dingy. In a panic, I searched eBay and found the same coat in black for a steal and bought it. And then I found it in white and bought that! But what to do with the dingy one? Here's a good shot of the coat when we visited Meat in Louisville, KY:


With my collection in place, I figured I had nothing to lose, so why not dye it green?! I bought two bottles of liquid Rit Dye in kelly green. The directions online were pretty easy. My aunt, MaryLee, generously offered up the services of her washer and we got to work. I used about 1.5 of the bottles, but wished I had just used both. When it first started running through it looked like a very dark, forest green!
 

This is how the individual pieces turned out, though. It's still wet in these photos and a little splotchy. Batman is helping it dry. 

It's a little hard to tell, but the lining turned into a lovely shade of pale blue! How perfect!

Now Batman and Lenny are helping it dry. 

Detail of the wrist straps with new buttons.


I didn't like the look of the original white buttons on the now-green coat, so I replaced them with navy buttons. The final product turned out to be the perfect spring coat!









Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Sequin dress


A few years ago I wanted to get a fancy sequin dress for New Year's Eve. I found this one on Etsy. I totally love it, but it's very short AND very low-cut and I'm an either/or sort of gal. This year, I had the brilliant idea to get some feather trim to add some length. Etsy again came to the rescue for feathers. The adorable shop, Plumule, has tons of different styles and colors. 



The shop owner helped me decide on a yard of goose nagorie feathers. The emerald color seemed to be a great match. Best of all, the feathers come attached to a ribbon, which made it easy to attach. 




Amy helped me pin it to the inside and I hand-sewed it on. It was the exact perfect length! Sewing was a little slow going because there's glue securing the feathers to the ribbon, but it worked out fine. A blanket stitch kept everything secure. 

I'm really happy with the result! I think this will be fun to wear in the summer, too.


It created the prettiest reflection, too.