Remember this mess of a fit handed down from a cousin?

Boxy cut is too big in all the wrong places, stretchy fabric catches on tiny front hooks, red square sequins a bit much for most uses.

But it’s precisely those red square sequins that made this an irresistable keeper.

Enter Dolly Parton concert for inspiration. Dolly has no fear. She grew up dirt poor. She married at 20 and stuck it out. She takes all kinds of risks. She laughs it off when people are rude and tacky to her. And she loves to show off a bosom.

So take her moxie to heart, and give a big chop of something you know fits really awfully a try. Here’s how I did it (and it was a long time in the making):

1. REMOVE SLEEVES. I sliced through the shoulder seams to remove the sleeves whole. I also cut off the tiny hooks and eyes meant to hold the front closed because they caught on the fabric.

2. PULL IN SIDES. Fit to your body, pin and stitch well. What were boxy shoulders now are effortless cap sleeves.

3. CUT OUT A NECK. The front used to close all the way up - I wanted a loose V-shape, so I had to cut off the excess fabric from the original neck. Also meant pulling off, one by one, the sequins that line the edge.

4. FINISH NECK. Hem the neck by hand or with a binding. I sewed in grosgrain ribbon with the machine, then hand hemmed it over.

5. CLOSE IT UP. Tried a bunch of things to make this a top rather than a cardigan. Wrap-style with ribbon ties looked silly. Pinned the sleeves like a band to the bottom to hold the wrap felt too bulky. Finally - since I knew I wanted the sequins to stretch out into a design - I sewed two big snaps on the bottom corners.

The first set was sewn to the inside and a corner,

the other to the outside.

6. PULL OUT THE BOOTS AND GO. I’ll add a tiny ruffled cami top underneath, and a fitted denim skirt on bottom before going out in public.

and back

She’s coming this week and I’m all set.

View cinematic oeuvre (9 to 5, Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Rhinestone, Steel Magnolias, Straight Talk). Check.

Check out old interviews on the Tube. Watch new video with Amy Sedaris, old musical specials on DVD. Check.

Learn words to Hard Candy Christmas, To Daddy, Tennessee Mountain Home. Check.

And now my bosom is ready to shine! I finished my fabulous TOP the better to sparkle along with the lady Dolly.

Lucky my Mister was stuck at work covering the Indiana primary until very late this eve, freeing me up to think about how to get this refashioned bugger to work.

If you recall, I started out with a giant boxy stretchy red cardigan jacket, handed down from a cousin. And I ended up with the Hottest Little Dolly Top in Chicago.

As always, there’s a How to… right here.

Disgusting. I’m so sick of all this cashing in on what should be simplification.

The Phila Inquirer had a bit about the local design school’s trashion show — clothes from shower curtains and magazine pages — the same weekend the silly NYT ran some ridiculous magazine blurb about eco fashion. Now I’m getting better about considering the total cost of food and clothing nowadays, but that doesn’t mean unbleached “green” cotton should cost thousands of dollars. How insulting!

Anybody besides me sick to death of the commercialization and mass marketing of projects like this one we’re all in?

On that note, tomorrow, I renew a pledge:

“I still pledge that I shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself for 6 more months. I pledge that I shall create and craft items of clothing for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium.”

I first pledged the Wardrobe Refashion mantra Aug. 1, 2007, hoping to get through the Christmas season without buying new crap. Now it’s just a way of life that’s so second nature. I spend a lot of time thinking about crafting, and really, I should be using more of that time to exercise. But I love looking like noone else around, I love that I spend time making my clothes fit my body not the other way around and I love thumbing my nose at mass produced crap. I also love seeing the creative potential in everything around me.

Life is good.

Who knew squash would be the belle of the ball?

These baby pepper sprouts make me feel unsettled, as if I were looking at maggots or something equally icky.

And heirloom tomatoes - a present from my Mister’s beermaking buddy - also are coming up in an old terrarium.

My chamomile is popping up in the papaya pot, so tiny I almost missed it. Too tiny to photograph at this point — the seedlings all come out way too fuzzy.

We’re going to garden on the Y axis this year, trying to plant up and down instead of covering all our shared yard with our pots. My Mister’s dad gave us a planter last year — a pole with a flat anchor that we placed in the bottom of a large terra cotta pot, weighted with a stone and filled with dirt to the top. Then threaded two smaller pots through their holes onto the pole, tilting one all the way right, and the next one all the way left. did the same for a small pot on the top, filling all with dirt. It looks something like this.

I think we can buy a few more poles and some kind of anchor from plumbing supply, and string up more of our pots this way. Vertical gardening types believe the air circulation is better than planting flat on the X plane, and yields better, healthier plants. I’m more concerned with avoiding the irrational wrath of our sometime landlord. Plus, I want to grow as many edibles as we can in Chicago’s short growing season.

Will post photos of the planting structure when the next one’s done. Will post tutorial, also. Will do all this and more once it stops threatening snow.

I had a minor wardrobe meltdown this morning. Couldn’t find anything that worked. Granted, it wasn’t my usual office situation. I had to go to a writing conference full of people I’d never met, and I was riding my bike into the Loop instead of taking my car to the usual suburbs.

Nothing fit quite right. Most skirts were out because I couldn’t find any plain black tights without any holes. Wide pants are too tricky to bike in. Finally I came up with something, but it irked me that despite a closet of clothes, nothing was right. I think there’s too much clutter in there, too many distractions that seem like feasible options but for some reason, aren’t.

I’m going to an awards dinner tomorrow (Friday) night. A story I did at my last job - a piece I’m so proud of about notoriously and heartbreakingly corrupt suburban cops - is nominated among Chicago media. Sweet. But that same anxiety is kicking in - how do I look as proud as I feel, in bike-able gear?

I thought all week about making a dress from black jersey I bought in Philadelphia and am crazy about. But I haven’t been able to make anything right lately, and I’m so scared of ruining this chunk of fabric. My Minna top zipper broke so I’m going to have to redo it (no, it won’t repair. already tried that). And I made up a cute cap mockup in scrap denim but it was too small. Tried to do it again, paying closer attention to the pattern, but the second one turned out too small too. I’m scared of spending precious free time on projects that will leave me more frustrated than when they were still optimistic possibilities.

Maybe it’s just one of those nights.

My Mister’s sister is crazy for pink. I suspect it’s to prove her tacit credos that redheads can wear whatever they like, and so can tough broads.

She also teaches at a Chicago Public School, and hates mixing her ‘normal’ wardrobe with her teacher clothes. So she has a sort of double wardrobe.

I don’t know where this vintage handmade blouse will end up, but I spotted it at a suburban Salvy and plunked down the $.75, thinking if she doesn’t like it, she’ll donate it back. Or she’ll hand it back and we’ll put it up for a few $ on etsy. It has a wide, trapeze shape, and the sleeves were sewn on in three pieces.

Plus, the pink circles are mesmerizing. I had to repair the sleeve and bottom hems.

I think it worked.

Card by Rar Rar Press, Chicago.

My mister has a fantastic auburn stash growing under his nose. And I have a fabric stash growing under a terrarium (it sits atop a bookcase, stuffed with folded fabric).

Totally just added to it. 70 degree weather (!) inspires all kinds of growing. And whenever the Joann has a 50% off the clearance fabrics sale, I totally stock up on basics and stuff for baby gifts. Some sewers advocate a five yard minimum when buying fabric for unknown purposes, but I’m more of a two-yard sewer. I don’t wear big dresses or full skirts, so two yards - esp. 60-inch fabric- is usually enough for pants, A-line skirts and most tops for me.

Too bad they didn’t have any plain denim. I’ve been itching to make a warm weather denim wrap dress using the BurdaStyle Desira pattern I’d lengthen like this one I already made for my favorite little girl.

Jojo did have:

Weird white cotton with red print of pheasants and old-timey looking couples. Will line something. Or turn into a blouse.

Gray lightweight twill for a Desira wrap dress.

Wine colored polished cotton. Some kind of summer dress.

Brown cotton with subtle black stripes and little dots for a spring top - the Ellinor Sew Along with Nikkishell.

Eggplant crepe backed satin. I really have a purple dress problem.

And this black stretch terry for one of these outfits, thrifted in a ratty Chicago spot:

Also bought this McCall’s pattern because of the hats.

I’ve been wanting to use two angora sweaters I managed to shrink to copy my favorite Kangol furgora jeff cap but have had zero luck finding a pattern. This little cap (E) is sweet and close enough for now. Will try it out using a chunk of heavy denim from this Freecycled bag of scraps.

Anyone know where to find great hat patterns?