The October Dress Project is an exercise that involves wearing one dress every day, all day, for the entire month of October. The Facebook page states: "Fom October 1st until October 31st, you wear one dress. Anti-consumerism, pro-simplicity, anti-conformity, pro-imagination."More information can be found on the blog of one of the girls who started it, Tala Strauss - a childhood friend of mine.
I started doing the October dress project three Octobers ago, making this the fourth October I've lived through since I heard about the idea. Out of the four (including this one), I've done the project three times, though I guess you could say I've done it two and a half times, since my second time through got a bit interrupted when Derek, his brother: Jeremy, my friend: Gillian, and I crashed our car while driving home from Thanksgiving weekend in Swan River (where Derek's family lives). Needless to say, I wasn't in the mood to be trying to be creative in looking good while I looked like this:
The year after the car accident, Lana and I planned on doing the project again, but life got in the way, so that year it didn't happen. But now, (two years since the accident) Lana and I have decided to take on the project, exercising our creativity and discovering what in our wardrobes we're missing to make them more versatile. This month, I'll be making one ODP post each week, with photos of the outfits that I've come up with. I can't promise that they'll all be terribly interesting, but here goes! Day 1:
Another reason why I chose to combine these posts is because I'm actually wearing my "Fantastic and Free" project in this picture! Zoom in on the necklace. Yes. I did make that today. And yes, it was totally free!
I'd seen necklaces like this in a couple different places (including this shop on Etsy, where you can buy them for $15 and under), but I figured I could try to make my own! I looked at a few tutorials, played around with a couple different fabrics, and eventually figured out what worked for me.
I started off with a t-shirt that I love the colour of, but I simply couldn't stand how it fit me. I had been planning on donating it to MCC, but figured that cutting it up and turning it into a necklace was the better option. As it turned out, I really really struggled with the fabric. It wasn't turning into anything like what the pictures had shown. I figured that was probably because the tutorials had used linen type cloth, and my t-shirt was much closer to jersey.
So, I ended up going to my fabric scrap box, and as I dug around, I found some cut-offs from a pair of jeans that I'd made into shorts, and I figured that that material could probably work. I started off by folding the two and half inch wide pieces of fabric in half, and hot gluing them that way, then I rolled a tight circle in the middle, and when it was about four rolls thick, I glued it in place, and - twisting it away from the centre - I twisted and wrapped the material around the centre, gluing every once in awhile. Sorry in advance for the bright green background. I was working on my living room floor, and I didn't want to get hot glue all over the carpet, so I put down a reusable grocery bag.
One of the best things I found for keeping it together, was to turn it upside down and put a strip of hot glue along the cracks.
When the flower was as thick as I wanted, I cut off the leftover centre portion, and hot glued the "tail" of the fabric to the back of the flower.
I made four out of the jean material (I absolutely lurve the stripes that happened. I used the "wrong-side" of the jean fabric as my necklace fabric), two a bit bigger and two a bit smaller.
Then I decided to give the jersey material another shot, though this time with a yellow dress that I bought in Paraguay, and that I haven't worn since (oops. See why I'm trying this ODP project? I'm trying to figure out what QUALITY pieces I NEED in my wardrobe so I stop buying things I never wear). It was definitely more challenging than the jean, and it needed a LOT more glue (I essentially had to glue every single crack, otherwise it would shift and fall apart), and a LOT more fabric, but it worked out.
Then, I took the chain of a necklace that I don't really wear, and I attached it to the flowers, and the flowers to each other, with scraps of jean. I did my best to make sure that the necklace could still be pulled out or moved around, but it was difficult, and I'm not sure I succeeded.
Because the flowers were still falling away from each other, I added a bit more glue in between them, glueing them directly to each other.
It turned out awesome in the end; I even put a small pearl in the centre of the yellow one, which makes me love it even more (pearls are my favourite after all). I think it might look nicer with a heavier chain, or a longer one, but for the moment, I do love how it looks.
Note: You may have noticed that I didn't post yesterday, even though I said I'd be doing this every day for two weeks. The reason for this is that I've decided I'm going to take Sunday's off blogging. They are meant to be my break from everything (homework, work, etc.) so it only makes sense to include blogging in that. Even though I really do enjoy my new hobby, I'll be taking Sunday's off from it.
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