T-shirt recon and skirt to handbag

Since my efforts at creating a dress did not go well (the dye went navy rather than black, the dress itself didn't change colour at all etc.) I needed a simpler project, so I remade a t-shirt. The original t-shirt was an ordinary boxy t-shirt that my parents bought in the Camargue, which I remade into a more fitted t-shirt with better looking sleeves. I'm particularly happy with this because I didn't use any tutorials, just the pinch and pin technique.

T-shirts are fun to reconstruct: they are very versatile and can be remade into a myriad of new clothes or accessories. I plan to do more t-shirt makeovers. One thing I want to try in particular is to make a blotchy looking t-shirt, such as this I'm not sure how to achieve this affect: is it

a) tie dye on a plain white shirt using red dye and black dye

b) tie dye using bleach on a black shirt

c) tie dye on a red shirt using black dye

d) tie dye using bleach followed by dying the shirt red

e) something else?

I've been experimenting with t-shirt designs, such as this:
but sometimes a printed design is a little boring on its own, so dying techniques and how to add embellishments are all going to be useful in making unique t-shirts



My other weekend project was making a skirt handbag. It isn't the first one I made, but it is the first one with a proper strap that won't fall apart. I hand-sewed this bag because I couldn't be bothered to change the needle on the machine. I used an enormous denim skirt that ended up in my fabric pile: in fact, I have enough material left over to make another skirt-or handbag.

I'm going to continue to think of way of creating my star-dress. I'm considering creating a corset-like dress, without boning, something like the t-shirt in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdmsPTLnhRA&feature=related . I don't think I'll put in any lacing; a zipper up the back is just fine. I just need to find the right fabric.
EDIT: I have to start thinking about what to cosplay for Comic Con. the Convention is mid-October, so it will still be warm. So far, Neytiri (Avatar), Masane (Witchblade: firast Witchblade transformation), San (Princess Mononoke) and Violet (A Series of Unfortunate Events) seem the best options.