I love to look at all of those beautiful '30s knitted and crocheted dresses, but since I don't know how to make either, I had resigned myself to the idea that winning the lottery (or *ahem* finally learning to knit!) would be the only way that I would get my hands on one of these lovelies. But then I remembered: Hey, they made knitted and crocheted dresses in the '70s and '80s too! I found this great knitted dress on etsy:
Not exactly sure what I was going to do with it, I removed the turquoise trim and starfish embroidery, but there were some marks underneath that I could not get out. So, I turned it around so that the marks would be in the back, and after looking at MANY images of '30s knit dresses, I finally came up with the solution: a sailor collar! I've been wanting to make a sailor dress for so long, and this was the perfect opportunity, since I needed to cover the marks from the embroidery! Here is the result:
Here is the back. The collar is made from the same cut-up sweater as the hat that I am wearing in the photo below, which I blogged about making in this post. Luckily, it was a rather large sweater, and I used it to make the belt as well!
The striped knit is from yet another sweater redo (to be photographed later)! These were actually the scraps from that project, and I was able to make the bow and 4 covered buttons; two for the belt, and two to add onto these beautiful crocheted gauntlet gloves that I got on etsy.
The hat is another alteration, on which I used the same basic technique as my last one. It was a basic men's fedora with a small brim, the kind that they sell everywhere lately, brand new from Wal-Mart. It basically looked like this:
I wanted a white straw hat and couldn't find one at the thrift store, so I had to shell out for a new one. It was still under ten dollars, though! I separated the crown from the brim, cut about three inches off of the height of the crown, wet it and rounded it out, and sewed some tucks down the length to make it smaller and to add interest. This time, though, instead of putting a wire in the brim to change its shape, I wet it as well, and shaped it by weighing parts of it down with books. I wanted to make it look like the brim in this picture, and also as far away from a fedora as possible.
I am very happy with the way that it all turned out!
More pictures and details on my blog!
I wanted a white straw hat and couldn't find one at the thrift store, so I had to shell out for a new one. It was still under ten dollars, though! I separated the crown from the brim, cut about three inches off of the height of the crown, wet it and rounded it out, and sewed some tucks down the length to make it smaller and to add interest. This time, though, instead of putting a wire in the brim to change its shape, I wet it as well, and shaped it by weighing parts of it down with books. I wanted to make it look like the brim in this picture, and also as far away from a fedora as possible.
I am very happy with the way that it all turned out!
More pictures and details on my blog!