Hugging a strange man

I received a bear hug from a complete stranger last week.

Generally, I am super grumpy at 7:30 AM while riding the elevator to the third floor.

I entered the elevator and joined a very large man also riding. The man seemed fidgety and peculiar. Great, I thought, I get to share an elevator with a weirdo.

As the elevator approached the 2nd floor, the following conversation commenced:

“How is your day going?” asked the large, strange man.

As it was 7:30 AM I tried to figure out the appropriate answer.

“Fine, so far,” I said. “How is yours going?”

The man smiled a huge smile and said, “I have a son.” He was beaming. “Can I give you a hug?”

Many trials, mostly errors

This blog piggy-backs on THIS ONE written a few months ago. I finally made it to the goodwill and purchased two beaufitul house dresses.



Lovely, are they not? Anyway, my goal was to make a blouse out of the top piece and a dress out of the latter. Due to some mis-measuring by me, they both turned out to be blouses. Whoops. Live and learn, I guess. As Andy so expertly put it, "You have to start somewhere."

So, let's start at the beginnning, shall we?



First item on my list was to shorten both pieces and remove most of the sleeves. Above, I cut it short and removed the super awesome snaps that held the front together. I pinned the front of the now blouse together for stitching.

Below, I removed the length and chopped the sleeves. Please, no making fun of the fact that I cannot cut in a straight line. I really did my best. Please note little Alice Boo was really excited to get in on this project.



Next, I opened up the neck of both pieces and pinned them into a V. The darker piece will have a much deeper V shape. Only one is pictured because I got tired of taking pictures of pinning. Really not that exciting.



Here are the three pockets that I removed from two dresses. Don't get me wrong, I totally dig pockets--just not in the pieces that are being transformed.



Here's the obligatory sewing machine shot. This is to prove that I sew. So, there you have it. I sew.



Isn't Andy the best? For the purple and cream top, I used some left over fabric to make a belt. After I sewed in inside out I started to manually turn it right side out. After working on that for five minutes or so, I got frustrated and handed it to Andy. Without complaint, he set down to work and slowly, slowly, HE DID IT! He's a rockstar.



And here are the final products:




I hope you enjoyed the journey! I look forward to doing better next time!

Special shout out to Marisa and Mandee for supplying my inspiration!