Curl Up and Dye: Drapery Dress Refashion

I found this dress at the store for about four dollars.  It's generally ill-fitting up top, but decent everywhere else.  The pattern.  Oh Lordy, the pattern.  

Not sure toile is meant to be worn as clothing

 So this dress is blue and white toile.  Not going to work for me.  I see that toile, and I think curtains, bed spreads, and maybe a chair.   That material is regularly in the home decor section at JoAnn's fabrics.  And no, this is not a homemade dress; it is Ann Taylor.  What to do to bring this more to the clothing world?

Dye!  I threw this in my machine with a splash of blue, red, and black to create this plum color (just kind of winged it with the color combination...whatever, the dress cost me $4!).  Long, hot cycle in the wash, all cotton piece, quick wash with detergent and good to go.

The square neck wasn't really doing much for me except for puffing out on top, so I decided to cut this into a v-neck.  I used my ruler to find the midpoint and make my cut.  I also ended up getting rid of the stitching that matched the rest of the dress, so a quick run through the machine to get my white top-stitch on (white since thread is generally polyester and won't take dye) and that was fixed.

Gimme a V! Gimme a ... yeah, that's it actually.

A little taking in on the sides and this is the result.  I paired it with a blue belt pilfered from another dress and a pair of boots for the workday.

Yay! Natural light in the morning

 It's hard to see in the outside shots (but easy in the inside one), but the blue flower patterns are still there; they are just much more subtle against the purple background.

Itching to go educate young minds