Skirting the issue: clothing restyling

I bought the cutest skirt the other day and I wanted to show you because I think it is very inspiring. I purchased the skirt at a small local boutique, and the owner told me that everything in this particular line of clothing is one-of-a-kind; that it was all repurposed and embellished with vintage items. Here's how that translated to me: the designer (a local girl) buys clothing at thrift stores, fancies it up by adding some details with vintage fabric and trim, cuts out the original tag and replaces it with her own, then marks the price up about 1000% and consigns them to this little boutique.

The pieces that were in the boutique were really cute. Unfortunately, because they were all OOAK, I was out of luck on several items because they weren't my size. I did find this cute denim skirt with fun detail on the front that will be great for summer and even with tights for fall.

The skirt itself is a nice, basic piece--I love the cut and the fullness created by the panels. The embellishment is really simple, but it's cute. Here's a closer look:

All she did was run a line of baby rickrack up the seam of one of the panels, then appliqued on leaves cut from bright vintage fabric. SO easy! Heck, I'm a-skeered of my sewing machine, and even I think I could manage this. Some of the other pieces in the shop had leaves or flowers cut out of  vintage feed sack fabric. Those were my favorite, but none were in my size.

In a nutshell: find good, solid clothing pieces at the thrift store that fit you well and are nicely made, then raid your stash for fabric and vintage trims, embellish, and you end up with a darling custom clothing item. This strikes me as a great use for scraps of vintage fabric that you just can't bear to throw away, but that are too small to do much else with. I also think it would be clever to use my Sizzix Big Shot and my flower dies to make the appliques. Now I just need some cute, cheap thrifted clothing to experiment on!