The hunt for the sewing machine is over!

Well I finally got a sewing machine... like 10 minutes ago, literally. You can tell my genuine excitement by the fact that I felt the need to run home and blog about it.

I found the little guy on craigslist and for fifty bucks, I was assured it is brand new and never used. Well I have not even plugged it in yet but it looks awful dirty and dusty for being brand new. The lady seemed nice enough, even though she talked my ear off and stood in her pjs smoking cigarettes in her front yard, which happens to be down the road from me... lucky me, I made a friend. She used a lot of swear words as she told me about her grand daughters girl scouts or something or other which I thought was weird... my mind wandered from there and I don't remember what else we talked about.
I hope she never reads this..

Brand new??... ya right..eww. Ok in all fairness, this is just the case.

Anywho – So yay for me, and now I can pick up where I left off, and yes I have a growing pile of thrift store clothes in my room waiting to be made into something fabulous. And the other day I received my first freebie dress from someone who no longer needed it and wanted to see it made into something else. So what I am trying to say is, Yes, donations are always welcome. : )

Stay tuned...

On The Hunt

So today I am on the hunt for a sewing machine. Up until this point I have been using my friend, Jeff's but now he had to take it back to work on some projects of his own. So heres the thing, I don't want to have to spend a lot of money on it because that kinda defeats the purpose of being thrifty right?... plus I don't really have a couple hundred bucks to drop on a sewing machine. I'm not even really good at sewing, thats the funny part. And usually I spend more time swearing at the machine then anything else.
So anyways, thanks to Craigslist, I was able to chase down a few garage sales that are have one for sale. So that is my task this morning, once I can drag myself out of bed and pump some coffee thru my veins, I will be ready to wheel and deal. So wish me luck!
I will however, provide you with a little entertainment from the outfit project with a shirt I did a couple of weeks ago when the sewing machine was still in my possession.
I actually bought this shirt over a year ago and wore it to a 80s themed bachelorette party it had a really great Michael Jackson feel to it. Originally it was long sleeved, I am sorry I do not have a picture of that because as soon as I got it home I immediately hacked the sleeves off so use your imagination. But here is a before, a crazy before... I won't tell you which one I am, if you can't tell by now it is your own fault.

Don't judge us, we  were having fun.
I case that isn't enough... here is another before.

And ladies and gentlemen, (insert drum roll here)...
the after:

My favorite part was the faux bow on the shoulder.

Oh the possibilities...

I was really excited when I found this dress because there are a million different possibilities for it. You may look at it and just think, yuck! Well I understand that it looks a little not-so-appealing and I must admit it smelled even less appealing (more on that later). But I was thankful to the Pentecostal woman who decided to give this dress up and donated to Goodwill so that I may enjoy a few years with it as well, only in different form. 

So here's the thing, this dress smells. It happens to be my favorite but also the smelliest... funny how that works out. So anyways I washed the crap out of this dress with no results so I decided that I am just gonna go with it and hope that no one notices. I have not wore it out yet, but please if you see me out wearing it and you notice that I smell like an old lady...act natural. Your manners are much appreciated, but like I said I washed the crap out of it, so it is definitely clean if that validates anything.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with this until I was almost done with it. My friend, Josh suggested doing it in two pieces, make a shirt out of the top and a skirt out of the bottom. I liked that idea... I'm not exactly sure why I didn't do that, but anyways I did this instead:

My boyfriend said "I love it!'... and THAT is huge for him to admit. I get the impression he thinks I am off my rocker with this whole dress project thing... he may be right. 
Oh well, for now I am having fun.

Meg Ryan Inspired

This little number caught my attention on the goodwill rack and instantly reminded me of Meg Ryan early 90s. I don't have a specific movie reference but once you see it you will agree. But when I saw this I thought it was a perfect way to step myself into the romper craze. At first I thought I would sit out the romper phase and let it pass me by; personally I think only about 10% of all rompers worn are successfully pulled off and so far everything I had every tried on looked too dumpy in the rear or just looked awkwardly like pjs. Anyways I am still not completely sold on rompers but here is what I came up with:

Here is the before. I know what you are thinking.... "you paid seven whole dollars for that??"... yes, yes I did. I am not sure if this is supposed to be a cropped pants look or if I am just too tall for it... either way I think we can all agree, AWKWARD.

Ok here is the after:

Much improvement I would say. I learned a lot about hemming a cuff from working on this project and let me tell you my advice, wait until you know a little more about sewing. No up close pics taken on this one for that very reason. It is actually more difficult than the girl in the youtube video makes it look. Anyways, I wore this little ensemble out for an evening pub crawl. It was pretty comfortable minus the loose threads and crooked pants cuff....what can I say, I was in a hurry.