This piece is super light weight and flowy. I knew it’d be perfect for #RefashionRunway3 Challenge 5 🙂

This is a nightgown actually, and on the back yoke there was some embroidery.

I thought I could seam rip this out… yeah, no. Don’t even try. SAVE YOURSELF the time (and your religion!).

After hours (no joke) of trying, I finally decided to just cover it!

Because the crochet has “holes” in it, I sewed this over the yoke with a multiple zig zag. Basically, there are 3 straight stitches inside each “zig” and “zag.” AKA an “elastic stitch.” It caught the holey fabric of the crochet better than a regular zig zag would have.

You can still see the embroidery coming through, but that was actually my inspiration for making this REALLY “boho.” I decided to use blue, yellow, and green thread and stitch the heck out of this with some fun decorative stitches!

The Janome 15000 is the perfect machine for such a task. With 525 decorative stitches on it I can’t go wrong 🙂

A lot of machines have many/really nice decorative stitches… but another reason I chose to use the 15000 was because it has a 9mm zig zag. Most sewing machines go up to 7mm. It’s amazing how much bigger the same stitch looks when it’s sewn at 9mm.

Knowing that all my decorative stitches are gonna be GYNORMOUS, I began with the blue thread and sewed along the neckline.

Then, I got my yellow thread and sewed a different decorative stitch under that.

This material is SUPER thin, so I had to use a tear away stabilizer on some of the stitches.

I selected a different stitch and used some green thread. I repeated this process until the entire yoke was covered in stitching… and I did the same pattern on the bottom hem of the shirt too.

I wanted to add an easy sleeve, so I used the original ruffle at the bottom of the nightgown.

Right sides together with the armpit of the shirt, I sewed in the ruffle.

You might’ve guessed I cut 14″ off the bottom of the nightgown. I had hoped I’d have a knee-length dress left over… Alas, after trying it on once my sleeves were in, I HATED the length! The decorative stitches on the bottom sort of gathered the material giving it a bubble hem appearance. As a severely pear-shaped woman, that is probably the least flattering silhouette on me. Though it pained me greatly, I had to cut off more length 😦

I finished my new raw edge with a rolled hem and began the process of starting over with the decorative stitches….

I decided to try some different stitches while I was at it… and I used only blue thread for this because I didn’t think the green and yellow were translating well on camera.

Then, I got super daring and decided to add a couple rows down the front of the shirt in a kind of  half rectangle shape. I measured, marked, said a prayer, and went for it!

I sewed another row inside that one and decided, after hours of sewing and 6 filled bobbins later, I was done 🙂

This one took a lot of time, thread, and patience. I really like how it turned out, though. I didn’t really do anything too spectacular to this. This refashion was just having fun with thread colors and stitches. That’s it! Refashioning doesn’t always have to be complicated. If you want to spice things up, have some fun with your decorative stitches. See what happens 🙂

I’m a little shocked I’ve made it the the Final Four in Refashion Runway. This is definitely very cool. All the ladies who were a part of this are pretty awesome. If you’d like to vote for your favorite “Boho Chic” refashion for this week, Click Here.