So today I'm going to show you how I turned my bed sheet into my dream summer dress.
My name is Isabelle and for the past six years I have been living here in the mountains, through the hottest summers and the coldest winters, in a little house I built myself.
I spent almost all of my 20s working on this dream of living here, building a garden, growing my own food, cooking from scratch and trying to be as self sustainable as possible.
And on that journey I taught myself how to sew.
And in today's video I will tell you guys the story of how I made my dream summer dress from a simple bed sheet.
So it rained last night, which is very weird for this time of year, but it's been kind of a weird winter here.
I woke up this morning and it was foggy everywhere.
Look at this fog, you guys.
Oh, I just love it when it's foggy here.
I'm on my way back home right now.
I'm just gonna go make a coffee and then I have something very exciting planned that I'm gonna do today.
So for the past I want to say three years now.
I think it's been three years.
Every winter I will start sewing the outfits that I'm going to wear in the spring and the summer.
And it's just been this thing that I've been doing that's helped me kind of stay hopeful during this very cold, lonely time of year.
Um, just to kind of daydream about what i'm gonna wear in the summer and um yeah, i'm gonna start sewing my wardrobe.
For today's dress, I'm going to use this extra bed sheet that I have.
I have been using bed sheets lately a lot for my dresses, mainly because the sewing store in my town closed down so I have no access to fabric anymore.
And I seem to always have a bed sheet laying around, so that's what I'm gonna use today.
To start making this dress, I'm going to first draw out what I want the dress to look like.
I want it to be a pretty simple design, something that I feel comfortable in, that fits me well, something that I can wear on a daily basis.
In my head, my dream summer dress is something that I put on all the time.
It's a dress that I can run around the meadows in and I can wear picking flowers in my garden and hiking up the mountain, and just like going about my daily activities wearing this dress.
So it needs to be comfortable.
That's the main thing.
So what gave me the idea for this dress was the other day I was at this vintage shop and they had this little section where they had these vintage fabrics, And in this section, you guys, I found this lace.
And okay, here's the thing.
I normally don't like lace because it's a little bit frilly for me, but this lace is so nice.
It's like simple and delicate and it looks very vintage.
And I was lucky because they had quite a bit of it.
They had quite a bit of this lace.
And I instantly had this image in my head of a dress where all of the edges of the dress were like, lined with this lace.
I've never added lace to a dress or anything.
And I really think that this might be the missing thing that will transform my homemade dresses from homemade looking to professional looking.
Because I'm realizing all the dresses that I love have like a lot of details to them.
You know what I mean?
And adding more details like this lace, I think will just make the dress look more professional.
Thank you.
It's quiet in the mountains these days and, as the sun rises on this morning, I invite you to grab your notebook, get comfortable and let's talk about BetterHelp, the sponsor of today's video.
So I've gotten into this journaling routine lately And it's been really helping me notice the things in my life I've been holding on to that are unnecessary.
The things that I can let go of to feel lighter and happier.
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So it's been an interesting winter here in the mountains.
All of last summer i was honestly dreading being here alone.
I was sure i'd feel unbearably lonely or that the cold would just make me so depressed.
But now it's february and it's actually been an incredible season here.
It's been peaceful and quiet and I've found a lot of joy in the simplicity of my days here in the mountains.
And that's been a big lesson for me.
I think we're so quick to fear the unknown, to fear change, to fear anything that feels different.
But most of the time that fear is just a story we've made up in our heads.
It's not the truth.
And the truth is, I like being alone.
It's actually really beautiful.
And getting through this winter makes me want to keep choosing things that scare me a little.
Oh my gosh, you guys, this has been so much harder than I expected it was going to be.
So I thought that I could just kind of wing it without a plan and things would work out.
And they did not work out.
They did not work out one bit.
Yesterday I worked all day on this and then this morning when I woke up, I came in here and I realized I had made such a big mistake that I needed to rip out every single stitch and basically start over.
So that's what I did.
I started over.
I need some music.
Oh my gosh.
Oh, I hope this looks okay.
I added like some lace along the waist here.
But now I'm like gathering the waste and maybe the lace is looking a little bit too bunchy.
I don't know.
Try it and see what we think.
I don't know about this.
I don't like this lace.
Oh, I really don't like this lace.
It's looking kind of weird. giving up.
I'm giving up on this project.
My dream summer dress might always be a dream.
My dream summer dress might just always be a dream.
Staying up late, working hard at the machine.
Am I ripping out the ruffle?
Whatever.
I'm just gonna leave the ruffle.
I don't even care if it looks bad because...
I'm not redoing that.
That took way too long.
Now we are attaching the skirt to the shirt.
This is actually kind of an exciting moment, to be honest with you, because it means we're moving forward.
So, after spending just so many years trying and mostly failing at making my own clothes, I have to say this dress is by far my favorite thing that I've ever made.
I am just so excited to wear this when it starts to get warmer here and I don't know.
I just I love all the details that I added and Yeah, I feel like for the first time, maybe ever, I was able to accurately turn an idea into an actual physical thing.
And so yeah, for that, for that I'm proud.
Anyways, you guys, thank you all so much for watching this video and yeah, I'll see you all next week.
Okay, bye-bye.
