Episode 3: Go Big or Go Home

GO BIG! Yikes did you hear that budget $500 not going to happen over here. Thankfully some of my friends and neighbors have heard what I am doing and have been kind enough to pass on some fabric. SO for my $500 imaginary dollars I went to my fabric rubbermaid container which holds mostly vintage fabrics that were never used when they were purchased, and do a little picking. I came up with an idea that I'll confess has some inspiration in my daughter's costuming.  I made her a Rapunzel dress out of a couple of old sheets, adapting a pattern by a fellow designer Little Lizard King. (tell her Mommaloha sent you, just kidding) Anyway I made up this dress for my daughter and I thought hey I think that looks comfortable and super cute. Every where we've gone in it, yes I let my daughter dress up when we leave the house too (I think the ladies at Walmart are always wondering who she'll come dressed as next), people have said I need to make one for them too. 

Instead I decided to take the same basic ideas and make it better. I made the top so the proportions would be right on a stilt walker. IF it was just for me things would have to be shortened a bit.

Rough in process shot, again I wasn't so good about remembering to take the camera out while making it. There was a really good reason for this. See my daughter has learned how to take photos pretty well. She's only 3 but can actually frame up a pretty good shot, unfortunately her little friend that I babysit can be a walking tornado, so I don't like to have fragile things out around him.

I should also mention that I did cheat a little bit. Since this was a pair challenge, I reused the pants I made in the first challenge only I redyed them. I live in Hawaii and honestly the chances of wearing the pants is slim, so why not dye them to match this outfit too. I made them so it's still not totally cheating. The only problem with that is they were not going to get the extra height needed to truely be a stilt walker image. I don't have any stilts anyway and no real desire to be that much taller so I used our bathroom step stool to give myself a little more height so you can kind of imagine what it would look like taller.

Then my husband, darling man that he is took just a regular shot of me while kneeling so that you would get an optical illusion of me being taller than I am.

I think for $0 spent it is pretty darn awesome!

The fabric floats and flutters as you walk so on the runway it does some serious eyecatching effortless beauty. I'm kind of hopeing that the next challenge is fairly normal, these adaptations are killing me. Plus Halloween is comming and I just sold the last costume in my online shop so I have some major sewing to get done.