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  • Hey guys and welcome to a new thrift flip episode

  • basically in this series

  • I turn ugly thrifted clothing into

  • slightly less ugly thrifted clothing

  • through the magical power of my mediocre sewing skills

  • I get so many questions about how I find cool stuff at thrift stores and

  • While some of it is just me getting lucky

  • and finding like the perfectly fitting

  • Beautiful vintage dress or whatever.

  • A lot of the times it comes down to me making small

  • Alterations to clothes so that they fit me well

  • and they look a little bit more modern and

  • less like grandma and more grandma chic

  • you know

  • so without further ado

  • I think I have some exciting stuff to transform for you guys today

  • So let's just hop right in

  • to the video

  • So our first fashion victim is this fabulous

  • Oktoberfest Meets Woodstock dress

  • I got this from a local thrift store for

  • $15 and it reminds me of like

  • if me and Safiya Nygaard fashion styles

  • had a baby it has this crazy

  • Bat sleeve that I know Safiya loves

  • but it also has a little bit of gingham for my picnic-bitch heart

  • I honestly already think this dress is so cool,

  • but it is a little bit costumey for my everyday life

  • So I'm gonna make a couple small alterations today

  • to turn this into a little bit more of like a reformation inspired

  • Modern-day picnic bitch dress.

  • The first thing I'm gonna tackle are these crazy sleeves

  • Now, I think on another type of dress that was more subdued

  • these sleeves would actually be a really cool statement

  • But I feel like with all the patchwork on the dress

  • that already exists having the patchwork sleeves as well

  • Makes it a little bit too loud for my taste

  • farewell beautiful sleeves. I shall see you in another life

  • * Sad violin music plays :( *

  • After trimming off the bat sleeves

  • I hemmed my new shorter sleeves

  • by folding the fabric up about a quarter-inch

  • Pinning it down like so

  • and then stitching all the way around to secure my hem

  • All right. So here is how the sleeves came out.

  • Sleeves are like my greatest sewing fear

  • That and zippers

  • They're just so confusing to me.

  • So, you know, at least they came out an even-ish length,

  • you know, they're like eyebrows

  • They're not twins. They're

  • loosely related sisters

  • to cover up my ever mediocre sewing

  • I decided to add a puff sleeve detail with this thin piece of elastic

  • I stretched the elastic around my arm to a tightness

  • I was comfortable with then cut two equal pieces of that length

  • Next I pinned the elastic to the sleeve

  • Making sure that the halfway point on the elastic

  • matched up with the halfway point on the sleeve

  • So it would be gathered evenly all the way around

  • with the dress inside out

  • I'm sewing a straight line across each elastic

  • The key is to stretch out the elastic as you sew

  • make a couple stitches

  • Stretch out the elastic more so that once the elastic contracts back to its non stretched state

  • the sleeve fabric will look nice and gathered like so

  • to put the finishing touches on this dress

  • I am next going to address this

  • bodice boob panel situation

  • I think this crossover design is a really cool concept

  • But I'm not a huge fan of this

  • brown floral ribbon that they used.

  • It feels a little bit arts and craftsy to me

  • So I'm snipping off the old ribbon and

  • replacing it with this white frilly ribbon I got from Joanne's

  • I like that the plain white was simple enough

  • to not seem overwhelming,

  • especially with the gingham as the background

  • But the ruffles still gave it some dimension and texture

  • To attach the new ribbon

  • I sewed a simple straight stitch over each piece

  • Originally, I planned on keeping the gold buttons,

  • but at this point I felt like the design was still too busy

  • So I removed them and saved them in my button stash for another project

  • And here's the finished dress

  • its transformation from 20th century Oktoberfest

  • to 19th century milkmaid is at last complete,

  • jokes aside

  • As you might be able to tell by my excessive amount of twirling

  • I'm really happy with how it came out

  • and it makes me feel like a Disney character

  • By the way, Disney, I am still available for the role of Mushu

  • If you guys change your mind just

  • just putting that out there into the universe

  • My next thrift flip is inspired by

  • these cardigans that I've been seeing all over Instagram

  • I think they sell versions of them in urban outfitters

  • for like $69. Mm-hmm.

  • You're 21 Ashley get a hold of yourself

  • I've also seen them at fancy boutiques for like $200

  • and I just thought this checks all the boxes for me

  • It is vintage inspired. It's cropped.

  • It has detail. It has pearls it has buttons

  • Mmm so I headed to my local goodwill

  • and I picked up this red knitted Anne Taylor cardigan for $7

  • I've honestly seen so many cardigans in this style at thrift stores

  • So if this is a thrift flip that you guys want to recreate

  • I think it'll be pretty easy

  • so the first step in transforming this cardigan

  • from your mom's wardrobe into

  • Your hipster ass wardrobe is to crop it.

  • In order to crop something

  • I always start by trying on the piece and folding up the bottom

  • to kind of envision what the new crop silhouette will look like

  • Then once I have it in the perfect spot

  • I grab a safety pin and

  • mark right where I want the new hem to end

  • from there It's a simple 10 step process

  • first fold over the old hem up to the safety pin

  • then pin it in place

  • Then sew all the way around

  • Then trim off the excess

  • then fold down the new hem

  • Then realize it looks really awkward

  • then freak out and cut all of it off

  • then realize it looks even more awkward with a raw hem

  • Then realize you never should have tried to crop it to begin with

  • and finally do not forget this step

  • Accept defeat, and

  • Realize that this is what your sweater looks like now

  • and we're just gonna move on with the tutorial

  • and not talk about it anyways

  • Now it is time to swap out these plain buttons

  • for something more fancy

  • while I was filming my last video

  • I broke this beautiful pearl necklace that I thrifted and

  • Like all of the beads are just falling off of it now

  • luckily after taking its drivers exam this necklace

  • It did sign up to be an organ donor

  • So we are legally allowed to harvest its parts

  • to revitalize another piece of clothing

  • You are a true hero my son. On our cropped cardigan

  • I'm gonna be using some of no no no

  • I'm gonna be replacing

  • the kind of basic plastic-y buttons

  • with these little pearls that fell off my beautiful necklace

  • Replacing the buttons was as easy as me, freshman year of college

  • I simply snip off the old ones

  • and use some white thread to attach the pearls in their place

  • to add even more detail

  • I added some extra buttonholes in between each of the existing ones

  • and reinforced the edges with this loopy stitch

  • Loopy stitch is definitely the official name for this technique.

  • But basically we're securing the edge so it doesn't unravel

  • And my final step of course

  • was to attach the corresponding pearls

  • on the opposite side of the cardigan

  • And here is the finished product

  • the raw hem is admittedly a bit of an L

  • But if you just focus on the boobs up

  • I did a pretty okay job, which is coincidentally

  • Also what God said when he made me

  • just kidding

  • He honestly could have done a better job on the boobs upward, too,

  • like, giving me more mental stability and less acne

  • But I'm working with what I got

  • "You're doing great, honey, keep it up"

  • Thank you

  • Last up I have this light blue dress

  • that I picked up from the thrift store for $7

  • The reason I picked up this dress is I love this color

  • Right now I'm going through a big pastel phase. Pastel blue, pastel pink, pastel ...

  • I'm just naming pastel col... you guys know what pastel colors are

  • I also thought the ruffles on the sleeves and the neckline

  • were gorgeous and they added a nice kind of vintage

  • Girly touch to the dress.

  • When I was thinking of how to transform this

  • the first thing I wanted to tackle

  • Is this very strange fit

  • it has this nearly footlong ruched waistline,

  • especially because the dress is a bit big on me

  • It just isn't flattering at all

  • so

  • Like the nifty little lazy motherfucker that I am

  • Instead of trying to take in the sides of this dress

  • and minimize the waistline and take up the hem instead

  • I'm just gonna shimmy this dress upwards.

  • So the waistline becomes an empire

  • an empire boob line

  • The waistline is now on my boobs if that makes sense

  • It's like an empire waistline

  • ariana grande type

  • silhouette

  • At least that's what I'm telling myself in my head

  • that I look like ariana grande and not

  • an oversized toddler.

  • Really it's a fine line these days.

  • Of course in order to keep the dress held up around my boobs

  • I'm gonna have to tear out the top part of this dress

  • and readjust it to accommodate my new neckline

  • Now, I want to make this dress feel more modern

  • by making an open neckline rather than

  • I really close it up conservative one

  • and also I just find it to be really flattering

  • on my small boobs.

  • So I'm thinking for the neckline I'm gonna

  • Shimmy, this fabric into my armpits

  • and create essentially this square

  • trapezoidal

  • neckline, I think it's quite flattering because it leaves a lot of skin open

  • but it also maintains the original position of the sleeve and the shoulder seam

  • Which is always really important when I thrift flipping

  • because I have no idea

  • how the hell to sew sleeves back into their sleeve holes

  • So whatever alterations I make

  • I always make sure that the sleeves stay in their original position

  • So now I'm just gonna pin this neckline into place with some safety pins.

  • I'm using safety pin and not regular pins

  • because they don't stab you when you take off your dress

  • Hence the name safety pin

  • actually because they are safer than regular pins. Oh

  • subscribe for more incredibly useless facts

  • Hello and welcome to this sexy sexy close-up of my armpit

  • Basically, what I'm doing here is tucking and folding away any excess fabric

  • And securing it in place with a safety pin

  • Sorry, my voiceover is really vague for this part.

  • But I'm kind of just eyeballing it and improvising as I go

  • next I took off the dress and got to sewing

  • I opted for hand sewing rather than a machine because

  • there were so many layers to keep track of

  • I figured I could use the extra control

  • I essentially just stitch what I had already pinned in place

  • and then flipped the dress inside out and trimmed off

  • this clusterfuck of extra fabric

  • Miraculously after that very improvised sewing process

  • this dress came out super cute if I may say so myself

  • I always do feel like you're doing these voiceovers

  • because it's essentially just be jerking off myself and telling myself like

  • - Good job, Ashley - Thanks, Ashley, that's very kind of you

  • But, anyways, I'm really proud of this one.

  • I look ready to release some chart-topping singles and spend thousands of dollars on pony tail extensions

  • Alright, and that is everything that I have for you guys today

  • I hope this inspires you

  • even if you have bad thrift stores around you

  • to give it a shot like you can pick up a

  • A honestly really ugly piece of clothing

  • and with a few simple alterations

  • turn it into something really cool

  • Also, just one of the coolest feelings is

  • wearing something that you've actually designed

  • and sewed. It feels really special

  • So, I hope you guys give it a shot.

  • If not, I just hope you enjoyed watching me

  • fool around with the sewing machine

  • No, nope.

  • That would be a really painful fetish actually.

  • Let's not think any more about that

  • Thank you guys so much for watching

  • and I'll see you guys next week

  • Bye!

Hey guys and welcome to a new thrift flip episode

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