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Hello! I'm Suzannah, a serious DIYer and mom of two little ones. Follow along with my DIY fixer upper house renovations, sewing and crafty projects, real food recipes, and de-stressing goals.
I believe you can love your home just the way it is, AND have the power to design and make big changes to make it better.
I'm also the author of DIY Wardrobe Makeovers!

Mumu turned sundress--not as bad as it sounds

Trust me, it's not as bad as it sounds.  I've been seeing a lot of cute retro-ey prints, simple dark colors with little roses or whatever, made into trendy and current sundresses. To me they look sooo 90's and kind of boring, unless they look like what I call "First season of Friends dresses," but with the right natural waistline and cute details, they can be really nice.

From ModCloth:

And some similar ideas from Anthro:

So when I saw this mumu at Goodwill Outlet, I thought it had potential!

It's almost vintage itself... no serging, little faded, vintage typeface on "Made in Hawaii" tag...

I'm not 100% sold on the print, or the retro 80s/90s print dress thing anyway, but I figured it was worth a shot when I spend $1.19/lb to buy the mumu that was my fabric.  I had a vintage early 1980s Butterick pattern that was a simple dress look that I thought might work, so I added some elastic thread ruching at the waist and will not wear feathered hair with it to update the look.  But I cut up the mumu and turned it into this!

It's an almost 100% recycled dress, since I did buy new navy buttons, the cheap kind on the card of 6.  I thought about using red but didn't have a fabric swatch with me to match the color... kind of wish I had anyway, though, to make them pop.

Stay tuned tomorrow for a tutorial on how I like to cut apart old vintage pieces and make them into dresses, like my pants-dress, men's shirt-dress and this mumu-dress!

12 comments

  1. this is great! i love the first dress in the sequence, very pretty... i have a few mumu's from second hand that would appreciate a clean up for this hot summer weather.

    kfar.blogspot.com

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  2. wow, thats amazing! you really make me think twice when ever I visit goodwill now =)

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  3. It is a lot better than it sounds. Lots of inspiration in this post as well!

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  4. "First season of Friends dresses" - I totally know what you mean! The dress you made is really cute, and I think the blue buttons look better than the red would have looked!

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  5. Oooh I love thrift store re-do's, it's kind of my obsession! This turned out really great. How did you cinch the waist? Is that shirred? Thanks for sharing!! :)

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  6. Your dress looks so cute, looks like a perfect summer dress.

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  7. Anonymous7/13/2010

    Love your dress! Yeah, those small florals remind me of the 90s too - I wore many a babydoll dress with my Doc Martens in similar prints! I am actual using a dark floral on a dress right now, but it's just a test dress anyway, so if I feel too much like Phoebe I can give it away!

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  8. Good work! I think the print is fantastic!

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  9. Aww you should have kept the white neckline and the ruffle, so adorable! It's still a cute dress though

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  10. Thanks!
    Bethany, yeah, it's just shirring with elastic thread.

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  11. That's actually really cute! Even now, I still look back on early friends and think how cute Rachel's clothes are. Great job!

    http://silverrosesewing.blogspot.com/
    http://www.etsy.com/shop/silverrosesewing

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  12. gorgeous! I actually kind of like the mumu, but you definitely improved it.

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