Hooks, Eyes, Ruffles and Refashioning!

It's just after lunch, and I thought I would pop in to post about what I am working on today. I've really been moaning a lot about the fact that I dropped the ball on the 12 in 12 challenges. I had such high hopes for being able to complete them all but life intervened.


So I have been working hard today to get back into the challenges. The October challenge is something refashioned (visit an op-shop and create something new). What a challenge!
When I lived in other towns, I shopped at op-shops a lot, I loved them! but here our local op-shops are actually quite awful. Theres no great finds, theres nothing interesting and everything is priced quite expensively, considering. The same things that haven't sold since we moved here 7 years ago, are still in the same places they were each time I go in. I understand they help and support a lot of families before the items left over end up in the store. I understand they don't put out the funky 60's-80's gear anymore, they put out recent,  real clothes to help real people - I get it, but it makes the stores boring!
So, last week I went on in and I tried my best to find something I would love. I wandered, I looked, I umm'd and ahh'd and squinted and pulled faces, and looked some more.
And then I spotted this sml ladies shirt out the corner of my eye, this colour! and a ruffle!

So, I had two ideas in mind, I had thought I wanted to make a bag out of it, but then my little niece spotted it's colour and she wanted me to make something for her out of it. So she wins! Cute trumps a bag! The absolute worst part about it is this:

It's held together all along the front with Hooks and Eyes galore!!!!
So, thank god for audio only podcasts so I can listen, while my eyes are busy while I am unpicking...and unpicking...

.....and unpicking!

I really wasn't going to post those pics, as it shows how messy my sewing space is. But since Hilary over at Quilary posted pics of her space I felt I really should show you I am not neat, I never have a tidy, clean, picture-book sewing room, but at the moment it is particularly feral, with more things coming into my little place recently than will ever leave and a couple of piles of things precariously balanced against another to hold them all upright. So far no major collapse, no avalanche, but it nears...I can feel it.

Will post an edit/update on the shirt/dress... later today with some luck!
Edit: I'm baaaack! and it's finished!

I used a triangle of white ribbing to close up the expose that was the neckline. For summer, the long sleeves were removed and a little frilled cap was put on instead. Where the hook and eyes were all down the front, I sewed it together completely, as it fits over her head instead.

October challenge complete!