OK, so all summer long, I’ve been hiding something from you guys. I love me some Mad Men and Friday Night Lights makes me swoon, but there is another show that I can’t get enough of. Yes, I’m opening up my Pandora’s Box to share with you that I’m wholly addicted to Big Brother.
I know, I know…I just had to come clean because my night tonight is fully wrapped around this show and it’s finale.
To the wardrobe…
Day 291 - Before
The fabric was flowy and had a blend of different animal prints – a little bit alligator, a little bit zebra and a little bit leopard to top it off. Perhaps I was rooting for the “Meow Meow” – Enzo and I share some East Coast roots subconsciously 🙂 (Sorry, for those of you who have no clue what that last sentence means, totally disregard and we’ll continue along…)
Pads out!!
Clearly these are coming out...
And taking in time, here we come…it needed a lot of work. I took in the sleeves, the body, and the waist with a little help from my sewing machine. My first go ended up still being too big, so I tried again and took it in even more.
Second time's the charm!!
After we got the proper sizing figured out, I added a big red belt, rolled up the sleeves a bit, and posed in front of JMT’s zebra print covered table to blend in. Had to get my photo taken before curtain time…
Day 291 - After
I gathered with my little BRA-GADE (one final shout out to BB fans…I think they really thought that brigade was spelled like that. Thoughts?!)…
Big Brother Finale...I know, I know
…and watched excitedly to see which fella took home the half million buckaroos.
The finger biting was solely for photo-op purposes...
So, I’m not always proud of my TV viewing choices, however this one gets me every year…feels good to come clean 🙂
New Dress A Day 
you are so talented!! I just love what you did to the dress!!
great dress! sexy belt! good combo!
l like that dress, you look good in it .
i was up so very early, like 3 am. organizing stuff and stuff. & checking emails, etc. when your email popped up i was so excited. again an amazing recreation.
I’ve been following you since the Yahoo article and haven’t made a comment… till now. You’re so fun & cool, but even MORE now that I know about your Big Brother-ness! 🙂
Great dress, too. 🙂
I love big brother too!!! I was disappointed with the winner. And i think because Enzo kept calling it the Bra-gade and not Brigade thats definately how they spell it. 🙂
Love this creation! The red belt adds a nice pop of color!
you look wonderful. love the dress!
Guilty pleasure shows are the best! I get harassed for it all the time, but I love the Jersey Shore and basically every dating show MTV or VH1 has ever put on!
Beauteous, as always.
Love this one. Looks great.
One of my favs of your creations. the red belt is perfect. Love your blog, check it out every morning.
I don’t really like the dress. It looks to homemade. Not something I’d wear out of the house .
Have you ever seen Bambi? If you don’t have anything nice to say… don’t say nuffin at all.
Huh. And here I thought “honesty is the best policy”
Seriously? A person can’t express their opinion here unless it’s 100% positive? I think Libby’s comment was fine and expressed her opinion without any sort of meanness or bashing.
Love the dress and love big brother too!! I was hoping for Lane to win. But thats all good.
I’m as addicted to your blog as I am to Big Brother! Love the dress, and I admit, I cheered out loud a bit when Hayden won! 🙂
The belt really makes the dress. You can really pull off so many different styles of dress, that it makes this whole pursuit of yours just perfect for you. I don’t think there are many people who could pull this off like you. Way to go!
I LOVE IT!
I have to admit I’m not really liking this one today.
It’s just not really my style. But I totally dig those shoes! 😀
it IS homemade.
Love the dress, amazing how you can do so little to it and still look great, oh that I had your model figure. Your blog has made me realise I do not have enough BELTS!! As for the TV choice er well I just hope it’s a better show than the British version which eventually descended into little more than a circus of the stupid, exhibitionist and mentally ill, all dressed up for the middle classes to laugh at. But who knows perhaps the US version is a little more wholesome. Enjoying your blog every day!
You are the best!!!! Great!
July/Brazil
I love this dress. It flatters your figure well and the colors work for ya. The red belt really completes it! My mother wore dresses like this with the belt when she was our age and they always looked awesome. Of course she wore them with knee high cowgirl boots because “Dallas” was the fashion inspiration of the time. I think you’ve inspired me to work on a few of my own. :o) I thank you; my husband of whom I ignore when I work on such projects may not. Ha ha ha…
I’m sorry…but I’m kinda not liking this one today:(
I don’t know…it just looks kinda old for you..like you borrowed your mom’s dress or something.
This dress looks great…like something off the racks! People are missing the point….you took it from huge and ugly, to your size and very cute with the touch of red!
You would think that if they didn’t exactly know how to spell Brigade they would have at least spelled it BRO-GADE to seem not as dumb. Yet in the end we all knew they weren’t that smart. I wanted Ragan to win simply because he deserved an award for his fight with Rachel. Maybe an Emmy.
Agreed – BRO-GADE or even BRAH-GADE…so it would have come across like a joke!! Aww fellas…
The dress looks good with the red belt. On you the dress would look better if it were shorter. You are the best size for this project.
I DVR’d each Big Brother episode this season…I’m not ashamed! LOL! Enzo and Lane we hilarious and glad Britney got some cash out of it! I also found myself wanting to take Rachel by her extensions and swing her around and slam her against the wall…ANNOYING!
Ok, sorry…got off track there…LOVING your new creation!!
Maybe its just me, but the dress still looks big on you. i love the red belt giving it that pop of color and the shoes are gorgeous–where are they from?
also… normally, you do close-ups of the fabric.. would have loved a super close-up of this one! there’s so much going on.. its a fun print.
ps. we all have our guilt pleasures.. i just got through the season of bachelor pad. it might be up there with your love for big brother. 🙂
Ooh this is pretty! I’m liking the pop of red from the belt – really adds to the dress. Oh and no need to feel bad about your guilty pleasure – I’m with you on it! Absolutely loved this season – The Meow Meow was my fav, and all in all the “BRA-GADE” was pure genius!
I’ll agree with you on Mad Men, but Big Brother I cannot relate. You do genius work with some of the most awful dresses – the red belt was a nice touch.
xx
http://novembergrey.blogspot.com/
Wow! A print with a sense of humor. I wouldn’t have guessed you could pull this one off. But you look very chic in the final version. Bravo!
Great dress–but I agree, it seems a little big. I think the main thing is that it is too long, and you look a little lost in it.
I am a decent sewer, but with little experience in cutting things down or doing major alterations. I have no idea how you “took in” the sleeves–just run a seam down them, continue the seam down the sides, then trim off the excess? Does that really work? What about the shoulders? My home-ec brain tells me no, but my clock tells me you had to have some major shortcut. It would help if sometimes you could tell us more explicitly HOW you do things.
I love how elegant this is.
Trudy
http://www.sewingwithtrudy.blogspot.com
AHHHHHHHH i love this!!!!!!! the belt pulls it together! i probly would’ve taken it more to knee length but I LOVE it! good job!
I love the Dress,and the red belt///
you look soooo,cute in it,I would love this one,
if I was 15 lbs.smaller,I am getting there,,,you have
inspired me to lose,and do more with my clothes,
THANK YOU SOOOO,MUCH,,
another win marisa! I love the dress – and apologize for the doubt I had when I saw the “before” dress 🙂 You always come through with something amazing. I can’t believe there’s only 74 days left….
Very cute. The red belt was a good choice. Don’t worry about loving BB. We all have our guilty pleasure reality shows (cough*ANTM*cough)
I love looking at your outfits everyday and I also share your passion for Big Brother. I’m a Texas girl, so I was really rooting for Lane, but I thought Hayden deserved the win. I think last night’s finale could have been turned into a drinking game though…you must drink every time a houseguest mentions “social game” . That phrase was way overused!
Ha!! We were talking about exactly just that!! I think Ragan brought the vernacular this season and the former sequester house (when they actually went to Mexico) now jury house (somewhere in the valley) couldn’t stop using it during their pow-wow. My TX friends who I was watching with wanted Lane too 🙂
Love the color red….. but I too would like to see the dress shorter, like up to your knees.
Hey! Enzo is my eldest son’s name 🙂 Love the dress!!!
Yea! Another Big Brother fan! I’m with you. I really wanted Enzo to win it all or a least win the twenty thousand! Hayden was my second choice. Another fun BB comes to a close. Love the dress and your blog. It really does brighten my day with your creativity with material and words! : )
While I’m not always fond of the pattern (this dress being one of those days) I applaud the talent you’ve got to just whip something fun up out of a dress/house dress/oddity that would otherwise been sitting on a rack for a looong time.
I envy the fact that you have a places that sell things like these so inexpensively! Our are has no such place, even the thrift shops are not cheap.
Don’t feel bad for watching Big Brother! I totally get my husband to watch America’s Next Top Model with me! And yes, those dummy boys had no clue what a brigade even was (well, at least Lane). LOVE looking at your outfits every day!!!
It’s wonderful! Red belt and red tootsies are perfect for this. Good idea, as usual. A winner! : )
I’m still in awe of your talent! This dress is so cute and looks great on you. I love how you can take something questionable and make it into something great. I hope you’ll keep doing this blogging about it when your year is up!
The red belt really makes the dress. Bravo.
I’m completely envious that you can wear all sorts of prints and look fabulous in them–I just can’t carry off prints like that! Cute dress and I think the red belt was the perfect finishing touch. I am another one who wishes you would explain just a tad bit more about your altering techniques–maybe that’s something you could do after you’re done with the 365 days??
Hey! I’ve been following your blog for a LONG time. and you’re really inspirational, i just wish i had half the talent you do! However, can I propose a challenge for you? I look at thrift stores for that piece of trash i can make into treasure and always struggle because it’s not like i can just take something in because it’s too big. I’m about a size 16. So here’s my idea: make an outfit out of something too small for you!
if you choose to do it, yay! if not, that’s ok. but i look forward to seeing your post everyday.
So do you have special home for all the ditched and neglected shoulder pads? I’d love to see your collection!!
LOVE IT!
And the red belt looks super amazing with it.
How in the world did you take up so much material in the sleeves? I can usually understand the sides but taking up sleeves and shoulders in quite another matter! Good job…
You were my “Daily Obsession” topic on my blog today! To view it on my blog go to: http://libby-d.blogspot.com/2010/09/daily-obsession_16.html
Beautiful! You are SO good. I hope to learn a lot from all your posts (: I’ve decided to go super green, and making my own clothes (or altering someone else’s) is on the top of my list. I have to teach myself to sew, ha. Hope my skills are as great as yours. Thank you!!
Yet another GREAT job!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can’t go wrong with red!!! I’m sure you are setting a whole new trend!!!!!!!!!!!!! Recession proof STYLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wow, you’re on a roll. I love this one too.
Part of my summer routine has been reading your blog along with BB live feed updates! Sad to see the one go…
I totally think they thought “brigade” was spelled “bragade” (if anything shouldn’t it have been “bro-gade?). Matt’s expression was great – like he couldn’t believe he was in an alliance with people that couldn’t even spell it.
you are awesome, i love your blog
You are truly amazing. What an imagination. You put us all to shame not recycling!
I watch Big Brother too! My dad was like, “They don’t know how to spell brigade at all.” I laughed and said it was on of their charms. I’m just sad that Lane didn’t win. I wanted him to win rather than Hayden. Sorry to all you Hayden fans out there, but I like Lane better.
I *love* that you made a whole new outfit just for the finale. I, too, love me some Big Brother!!
Saw you on CBS today. Super cool. I was at the BB finale. Those are my knees behind the screen with Lane and Hayden. BB rocks! Will be another All-Star season next.