 Hi guys! Are you ready for some more eyepcycling? Because I think I am. Big surprise. I know. Let's get to it. I have three thrifted dresses. This one, which is really long, actually longer than I am tall, and completely backless, but a really pretty pattern on the fabric, and despite the fact that it's a little sheer. And then I have this one, which is a pretty color and pattern with the tears on it, but not a style that I would normally wear. I mean I could wear it, but that's not where I want to go with that. And then I also have this one, which is this one that's too big. I don't know, because I don't have my glasses on. I think so. I think a couple of them are too big. Again, I just like the fabric and material. It is really long. It is a long dress. This one's not too long, but I think we're going to make some sundresses out of them. All three of them. We have some warm weather coming up, and I kind of want something loose and flowy and light that I want that I can wear. And I almost always wear bike shorts under my dresses. Fun fact, because hello comfort and pockets. I don't carry handbags or pockets. I don't mind having to lift my skirt up a little bit in the store and grab my wallet. And if somebody behind me doesn't like it, that's not my problem. So I always wear bike shorts and usually a sports bra and or tank tops. So I'm not worried about something showing. I just want something pretty on top of all that. Nobody needs to see my bumps and rolls. No. So we are going to take all three of these and we're going to make an indie pattern summer dress. This one, which fun fact, is the dress I have on. And yes, I have bike shorts. It's a really easy pattern. I really like it. And the basic shape of it works really well. Now again, because we're upcycling, we're going to work with the properties of the garments that are already there. Like in the green one, it's got some tears. We're going to kind of rip them all out. I'm going to use them to my advantage. I'm going to leave them there and just basically cut the top, trim it out, and add straps. The other two have some slits on the sides. One of the slits are really long, so we will probably sew them at least partly shut. But I'm going to use the hems on all three of the garments. We're going to use the slits and we're going to just work with what's there. One of them, even now, already has spaghetti straps. So I'm thinking about, although I'll have to recut the facing for around the neckline, I'm thinking about like cutting the straps off and just using the straps rather than cutting the strap piece. So that would work. Alright, let's get to it. I got some cutting to do. So I'll show you more about how I'm going to cut this one. I do try to save things on the garments that I think, even if I don't use them on this one, that I might be able to use them in future garments like this little button. There we go. There's also some cute like ruffling on the sleeves, which I may save. We'll see. But let's cut this one out, shall we? By the way, while I do this, I usually have one earbutton and I'm listening to music or in this case, the Huff GP. I don't know why I like his channel, but there you go. This dress has tears, ruffled tears on it. So we're going to use those to our advantage. The first thing I do is laid out on the fold of the center back and the center front. The first two dresses, I had to, they're going to have to have side seams. I was thinking I wouldn't need to do that with them, but they're going to have to have side seams on this one. I don't know yet. We'll have to see. I'm hoping I can make it work without having a side seam, but we'll see. It does have a little spot on it. Not too concerned about it. Okay. So, yeah. Okay. So here's the back and I'm going to line the fold line of the pattern piece up with the fold in the fabric of the dress. And I'm going to put some weights. Okay. There's the front and we'll line the front up and manipulate the pattern and the fabric pieces to be as high up, I think, or as long as we can get them. Try to get the fabric as flat as you can. Sometimes, depending on what you're working with to do this, it's easier to like deconstruct things. I try really hard not to do that. Just going to keep manipulating the pattern pieces until I have some things that I think will work. We're going to have a bit of a smaller arm hole, but I think that's okay. We won't have any side seam at all. So, all right. Now the scary part, cutting. Okay, then just because these pattern pieces are very similarly shaped, I take a straight pin and put the straight pin in the part of the dress that's the back piece. So, I know which is the back. So, the basic part of that dress is cut out. Yeah, that's going to be like that. That's cute. Okay. So now, out of whatever's left, we've got to try to get the facing and the straps. Most importantly, the straps because I can hodge-plodge the facing with something else in my stash. That's what I did on this one. I got some other black fabric. But let's see what we've got to work with. Maybe we have enough. I don't know. We'll see. Yeah, maybe. The straps will be a little shorter, but honestly, they're too long on this one. So, how wide is this? It's about an inch. Okay. So, we're going to do this this way with my straight edge. Still not sure about this ruffle. I should just cut it off for the moment. It's kind of cute. I might want to use it on something, maybe not this dress, but maybe something. So, let's just cut it off and set it aside. Sometimes I do that and I use it. And sometimes I don't end up using it and then I don't end up saving it either, but I'd rather have it than not. So, let's do the other side. That was a thick seam. All right, that's done. All right. Now, let's re-line up our edges. We need four of these long ones for the straps. Is this the same width? Yeah. Then I need a couple of short ones for facing. Okay. So, now we have all the pieces cut out for all three dresses that we need. The scraps. I have a big giant bag of scraps that go over here and they're going in there until I'm finished with the dress. I don't throw them away. I do have that bag and it's not going in the trash right now, so I'll put it in there. And then if I don't use it, they're already in there. But otherwise, they would be in a clump on the table till I'm finished. Just in case I need to patch something or you never know. Okay, I'll be back. This pattern's pretty easy. If there were side seams, I would sew them first and then you work on the neckline. And despite the fact that I put some pleats in here, it's still a little bit wide for me. So, I think instead of the pleats, I like this one. I'm not going to change it, but I think I'm going to do some gathering on all of these, a little bit of gathering here. And then I will add the front and back facing. I'll do gathering to the neckline on both front and back. And then I'll add the facing and finish off that. And then it's just a matter of facing the armholes and putting the straps in, which is all one big piece of fabric. So, let's get started. When you're making a change to the fit of the pattern, try it on before you do any sewing because you don't want to screw it up enough to rip it out. That would be bad. Right on. That works great. I'm going to use the serger for attaching the band, but then I'll roll it over to the inside and use the regular sewing machine for that. That way, the seams are finished and it's trimmed all at the same time. Work smarter, not harder. I'll be back. Okay, those of you who sew and or have a serger, if you have a serger, it'll relate to this. When they work, they work great. When they don't, they drive you absolutely up the wall crazy. I'm watching my language. When I have the back finished and a tag in it, then I can take the pinout marking which side is the back. And now I need to finish off the front so I serged the or zigzag or so or whatever you're going to do, the little facing piece to the neckline and then just flip it over and fold it down to the inside and then stitch it down. Then the armholes and then we're done. All right, let me get to it. It's not going to do itself. I'll be back. Okay, do you remember what the green one looked like before? Do you remember? Okay. I mean that's cute. Now the straps, I tried to knot them but they are longer. I can lower it a little bit if I want and I might want but I do and I do have a sports bra and the green color and actually bike shorts because of course I do and that would be cute. It's a cute, easy summer dress. If I can do it, you can do it. Let me do the other two. I'll be back. Okay, I got the second one done. My serger decided to be a butt head so I unthreaded it, cleaned it, oiled it, and rethreaded it. Crush your fingers. We're going to do the last one and then I'll try the other two on. I'll be right back. Okay, so here is one of the blue ones. It has a slit in the side which again I'm okay with because I wear bike shorts with pockets and that just means that I can put my wallet on that side and easy access but it's cute. Yeah, I like it. I could always sew that up a bit if I wanted but I'm okay with it for the moment. That's cute. Very, very cute. Okay, and I do again. I have bike shorts in a couple different colors of this dress so the shorts would not be black. Anyway, alright. Okay, this one had huge slits in it so I did sew them up a little bit or they would literally be all the way up to here because again it was a very long big dress but I do love it and even though I have black bike shorts and a black sports bra on, I mean the material is thick enough. I would still wear like white or a light blue under it but cute. Much cuter for me than the thrifted piece I got and a very inexpensive way to get fabric to make yourself some cute clothes even if there are very simple pattern like this one. I do really like my this pattern. It's become one of my basics and when I get some thrifted items and if I need summer clothes, this is one of the ones I'm going to probably make a few more times. Anyway, I'll leave a link to it down below. I'm not affiliated, not sponsored, none of that stuff. Anyway, this is the upcycling I've done this week. Have you done any upcycling? And if you have, what have you done? I want to know. Do you have really cute patterns, especially free ones? Links, share, do share. You can go over to my Facebook group, A Life of Art and Self Expression and tag me in a post and you know put links in there and stuff. You're okay to do that. What else? If you make a video, tag me, let me know. Send me the link. I'll go watch it and if you want ready access to all the upcycling I've been doing because believe me there's way more than this. I do sewing three to five days a week. I'm sewing the rest of the time I'm painting and other stuff but yeah. Join my Patreon. I mean it's a great way to support the content on the channel and you get ready access to me with a private Facebook chat. They have their own private YouTube channel and a whole bunch of other stuff so join Patreon. Welcome if you do and I'll add your name to the end of the video. Anyway, that's it for right now. I hope that it gives you some ideas of what you can do. Go out and have a great day. Do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. I'll see you later. Bye guys. I'll tell you the serger. It just needed a good cleaning and oiling. It seems to be working fine now. I unthreaded it. I cleaned it. I oiled it. I rethreaded it. I adjusted the tension on it. It seems to be okay now so I think it was like a combination of things but mostly I think it just needed some oil. So don't forget to take care of your tools. Make sure they're clean. If it's a machine of some sort make sure it's dusted on a regular basis. You suck all that fuzz out and you give it a good oiling. That being said I need to add sewing machine oil to my shopping list. On to the next.