Hair of the Dog: A Houndstooth Refashion

I love Houndstooth.  I think it is so classic, very Sherlock Holmes (obsessed!), and oh so in right now (so it says here, here, and here).  I'm thinking this isn't what they are talking about...

My apprehension is genuine.

As you can see from the picture, this is blinding in an M.C. Escher sort of way.  It's making patterns that don't even exist in the fabric!  This is what it looks like up close...

Houndstooth be mine!

The dress itself was also totally shapeless and fell like a polyester sack.  How to bring this from the past to Fall 2013?

Make it a skirt!  No one needs a whole houndstooth dress unless it is on a bigger scale, so the first step to reigning this bad dog in was to chop it off.

Gruesome but necessary

The rest of this was really simple.  I sewed up the buttoned area so I didn't have to worry about showing anything through button holes (or having a button come undone and show my leg in school which would be horrendous and mortifying).  I then sewed a one-inch pocket around the top, threaded in some elastic, sewed the elastic ends together, and finished it up!  I didn't have to hem or take this in at all! This is what I ended up with.

New backyard view! 

A simple black top paired with my now trusty red rope necklace (formerly seen here and here), and I was off to the races (dog races of course)! Okay, I was technically off to work, but sometimes it feels the same. I kept the bottom button unsewed to allow some movement round the knees.  

Artsy profile shot which my cat photo-bombed