As I Sew: There's some cool stuff at "clothes by the pound"

If you have a "clothes by the pound" store near you and want to practice sewing, go there! In about twenty minutes, I found these two great pieces that were in pretty rough shape, but didn't have any stains or holes in the body of the fabric (this is important - things with popped seams, ragged hems, ripped sleeves are all good candidates for fixing, things with big mystery stains and holes in the center of a panel are not). With a couple hours of work, I have some awesome new dresses that I would have struggled to put together from scratch. I wouldn't normally post about "fixing" clothes, but I also thought these dresses were really awesome designs.

The first dress still had a store tag on it when I got it. It's a nice rayon fabric that seems to have had a nude mesh in the open space on the front. Someone had cut the mesh out, and also torn out the whole back zipper:

I couldn't try this on or even figure out how the ties went with the zipper looking like this. For the price, I said "what the hell" and took the chance that it might not fit me.

Put in a new zipper, trimmed the mesh neatly, and that was it! I couldn't find any other damage to the dress, though it just barely fits. The back isn't lined up perfectly due to how the fabric was torn out (I had very little to work with around the zipper) and I didn't want to chance ripping it out and re-inserting because the fabric is a loose weave.

I really like the shape of the back on this. I have narrow shoulders, so this narrow back lays very well on me. I might have to try copying it.

The second dress seems to be vintage. I think it's made of velveteen (It has a lower pile and isn't as bristly as velvet) with machine embroidery. The collar caught my eye since it's not a common style anymore. I don't have a before picture (I know, useless) but when I got it, it was chopped off at the bottom. It was a clean cut and even, going through the zipper, but luckily the zipper pull was still there. The dress was a slight A-line with side bust darts. It was a little big on me.

I started by sewing a tack at the end of the zipper so I wouldn't rip the slider off. I found some matching bias tape and added that to the bottom to finish the cut edge. It's not the exact same color as on the sleeves and collar, but it's pretty close. Please excuse the non-matching thread - I wasn't too particular about fixing this neatly since it was so cheap.