Hello Kitty Dress Refashion

I really have a terrible habit of seeing something a friend has and then wanting it.  Maybe it's just good marketing by association?  A few weeks ago I saw AJ wearing an adorable Hello Kitty top and I instantly had to have one for myself!  And what better way to break in a new (to me) used sewing machine that I had just bought from AJ? 

It's been a long time since I have tried refashioning anything (a whole year according to this blog!).  I had the perfect dress I wanted to cut up.  It was another old Forever21 purchase and as you see here it was sort of cute but at the same time not very inspired.  Also, the one and only time I wore it was on a day years and years ago where I had a very, very off, breaking up kind of day with an on-off again relationship.  My biggest regret was being slightly unfashionable during said encounter and I could never bring myself to wear the dress again.  A very good reason to cut it up, don't you think?  I had some scraps of white knit jersey from a friend, enough to make a tube top.




Basically I sliced off the skirt segment, and sewed on the tube top portion.   The white tube is double layered.  I ended up having to cut the fabric so that the outward facing panel has the grain running horizontally but the inside layer the grain is vertical.  Overall there's less stretch since I have layered the fabric this way but it actually feels more secure and supportive.  The Hello Kitty face I cut from pieces of crafting felt and tacked onto the top layer of the tube top.  Her bow I made from scraps of lycra and stuffed with cotton balls since I didn't have any batting around. 

I'm quite pleased with it!  I already have a bit of a Hello Kitty reputation at work so I'd probably only wear it on the weekends or very, very casual days at work.

And bringing it all together in addition to pointing out the dangers of giving me a camera with a self-timer function and to show off the reason why my house has large amounts of blank walls - and that a new dress makes me so happy I just have to dance -->

I may have to take more dancing photos of all my clothes I make!  Just because.