The Private Benjamin top

I found this top in a charity shop, and liked the colours, but the shape was terrible. One for the reasons I don't have a lot of rtw non stretchy tops, is the general approach to make them massive and completely shapeless.

It is a stylised camouflage print with a nicer set of colours. But it makes me look like a sack of potatoes.

I look extremely glum in this before picture.. As you can see top is super unflattering.

So I put some long darts in at the front and back, and took in the side seams, added a (really badly sewn in!) zip and made it fit me. Much better!

Pink Pencil skirt refashion

Well, as promised yesterday, this was a super basic refashion. I picked up the skirt at a charity shop. I was attracted by the colour, I am developed a bit of a fetish for brightly coloured pencil skirts! It was also the correct size, or so I thought.. When I tried it on, not only was it (as I had realised) a grannyish midi length, it was also a little bit tight across the top, and kept sliding up and wrinkling.

When I had looked more closely at it, I realised that it had the same problem that I have with most pencil skirts, but slightly more so. As most fabrics have a little give in them, they stretch over your hips a bit, which if you like a snug fitted pencil skirt is ideal. However, if they are lined, the lining does not have this give, and the lining is also usually slightly smaller than the outer skirt. Every skirt I own with a lining now has a rip down the side of the lining. Which makes the lining useless as the non lined bit catches. therefore, as I am not one of those young ladies who is horrified/bemused at the need for slips (we did a poll at work, it was weird how many girls didn't own one, I am not sure how they manage..) I just rip out the linings and wear a slip underneath instead. Clearly a potential problem with the pink skirt was that the lining was too small, so I took it out, which was really easy as it was just stitched onto the inner flap of the waistband.

bye bye lining

I then cut off the bottom (really easy again as it is a straight skirt) and rehemmed. 

And it now fits extremely well, and I just wore a slip under it. 

Easy skirt refashion

Well its been a while. But I have finally managed to sew something! I had picked up this shapeless but jolly patterned skirt from a charity shop. It was far too long and a bit tight around the waist.

I simply chopped off the bottom and re-hemmed it to fix the length. As it is a partial elastic waist it was easy to make larger, I sewed down across the elastic about an inch from the end on each side and then made a small hole and cut the elastic between the old end point and the new, allowing the waistband to expand.

It now fits really well and is fun and flippy!

For my next trick I am going to having some slightly more adventurous refashioning fun with this super wide skirt.

Refashioning - where do you start?

Law commented on my Portobello dress post that she never knows how to imagine what she could make out of existing things, and this echoes a number of comments from some of my friends, who were regarding refashioning as magic or creative genius (which it clearly isn’t, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do it!)

Now I am no expert at refashioning. I haven’t done that much and I don’t tend to do anything very extreme. Neither am I particularly skilled (or at all frankly!) or knowledgeable about any aspect of sewing. So, health warning over, I can actually get round to my discussion point. How do you know how to refashion/restyle things? 

Now I’m sure everyone does this differently, and that’s part of the fun, but I guess this is my attempt to vaguely explain how I tend to do it. When buying something to refashion, you have to be drawn to some aspect of the item. In my case it’s usually the fabric colour or pattern. As my mum said the other day, she keeps walking round shops this season and seeing lovely fabrics and colours, and then picking them up and realising they have made something revolting out of it. That is pretty much the essence of my approach to refashioning - if I feel that the fabric deserved better, I will try and make that happen.  Alternatively there are things that are representative of clothes I’ve been meaning to get/make and which can be changed to fit that brief (for example I wanted a silky shirt, so I went out and bought one I could adapt)

The best way to start thinking about refashioning is to repeatedly try to imagine what you could do with random items, until you get into the right mindset (I think I learnt to do this making Halloween costumes out of random things!). Walk around a charity shop, pick up an item in a largish size from the rack because you like something about it, its colour, fabric, pattern, texture, buttons, whatever. Now try and imagine what you could do with it. Have a go with a few items, and see what sort of things you come up with. You don’t have to buy anything, I frequently look in 10 shops and don’t get anything, or I can walk into one and buy half the shop. It just depends.

Things to think about 

Do you like the sort of garment it is? Would it be better as a different category-eg if is a dress you can make it a skirt, or a top, or shorts, or a shawl, trousers can be made into shorts or a skirt, shirts can be made into skirts or have bits added on the bottom to make them dresses. Skirts can be hitched up to make dresses..

The lovely and talented Verity turns a dressing gown into a dress

Would it be nice if it fit you? Can you make it fit you-what parts of the proportions are wrong- does it need darts, a lower waist, a less poufy skirt? Is it too long (cut off the bottom) or short (add on a contrast panel, drop the waist..), or needs several inches off the side seams? Is it too tight across the shoulders but would be fine if you gave it a V neck?

I tweak my dress to fit and be more flattering

Would it be nice if it had different details or style? different sleeves, a different neckline, waist detail, straps, 3 foot cut off the bottom so it looks more fashionable?(always a staple of refashioning!) Could you dye it? or add different fabrics/notions in to create interest or new bits of garment?

Portia transforms this shapeless two piece into a lovely dress 

Does it have any existing work already done? Gathering, smocking, buttonholes, piping, hemming? Can you imagine the item as something else which has these details?

The refashioning queen transforms this hideous creation into a fabulous little dress at New dress a day

Is there enough fabric to ignore what it currently is entirely and use it as straightforward fabric?

Jennifer cut this amazing mini jacket out of a thrifted sheet (see her blog for the tutorial-I am totally going to make one myself )

Main questions before you buy

Is there enough material? It’s much harder to make things bigger than smaller.

Are there any stains/holes/tears than need to be avoided?

Is it actually good value?-frequently things aren’t cheap just because they are second hand; you usually aren’t getting a lot of material for your money.

Are you cutting up something nice to make something meh? I tend to avoid things that are really nice as they are, as someone else will appreciate them. If I want a piece of silk and voile, it may be cheaper to buy an evening dress in the charity shop but I’d rather someone got to wear and love the evening dress.

It really helps to look at what other people have done.

Have a look at  the refashion co-op, which used to be housed at wardrobe refashioned, or the fantastic 

new dress a day (she refashioned really odd things into nice clothes every day for a year on only $365). There are hundreds of other keen refashioners out there, with lots of different approaches.

The Portobello dress

Last week I had to go to Portobello, a little seaside town on the edge of Edinburgh, to get my car MOTd. As it was a lovely day and it was going to take a while I wandered up and down the beach, read some of my oceanography book in the local library, ate a delicious but rather over priced burger and hit the many charity shops! Overall, as with all charity shops, you could tell the proportions of the local population- down in Portobello there are clearly a lot of old ladies who like to wear slightly shapeless things. In one shop however I spotted a shapeless garment in a lovely blue and purple flowered fabric-perfect for my Spring Palette, and my love of bright flowery patterns. I snapped it up for £3, a bargain! (more so than the MOT- turns out I needed a whole new set of tyres. Ouch!)

When I got it home however the scale of the task became more apparent. The dress, as well as being utterly shapeless, was also too small across the bodice. You can see the gape in the picture but what isn’t so obvious is the way it pulled me in about 2 inches around every button from the side. Super flattering. The waist is also far too high and big on me, the armholes were too tight, the neckline doesn’t work and the whole thing is clearly far too long (that glamorous “midi” length that is very fashionable right now. apparently –in any case it is definitely not for me!). To clarify the horribleness of the item, when my flatmate Lindsey saw me in it, she burst out laughing and now still laughs whenever the dress is mentioned. So clearly some work needed to be done!

I decided that in order to keep it as a dress, I would have to put in a waist section to drop the gathered skirt down to an appropriate level. I would also need to cut a lot of the bottom, so there was conveniently some fabric available for that!  I therefore divided the dress into three sections.

The bodice was the first thing to tackle. As it was it clearly wouldn’t do up, and the neckline needed to be changed. I decided, mainly through opening it up until I could breathe, to create a mock open shirtwaist top, by having most of the buttons open, the neckline cut down accordingly and put in an insert panel in a contrasting colour. This proved slightly fiddly, mainly as every time I cut off a bit I didn’t need so that I could see what I was doing, I immediately realised that I did need it. sigh. I also realised half way through that I could only sew in the insert panel on one side otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get it on and off. After a little thought I decided to use the buttons, sewing them onto the purple inset and then having buttonholes on the outer layer. This just about creates the impression that they are just attached to the outside layer like the rest of the buttons. (I’m not at all sure I explained that very well..)

To offset this trying experience however I had some pure joy-namely my new bias tape maker. I asked for one of for Christmas from my mummy after seeing the how to on the Colette Patterns blog. Instead of the regular sew hundreds of strips together approach I made the tape strip using the continuous tape method again from Colette Patterns, which worked like a dream, much less hassle than the other way (which I also tried as I didn’t make quite enough the first time!). After that you just poke the strip through the little folder tool and it pull it along, ironing as you go-frankly I was sceptical, thinking it would be fiddly and awkward, but it was AMAZING! I now love making bias tape. I used it to trim the slightly larger armholes I cut. Super easy, worked like a breeze, looks really good.

Then I had to make the waistband section. I had already measured how wide I wanted it to be. I think that flat waistband sections sometimes look a little bodgy, so I decided to make a pleated one, inspired by the beautiful wedding dress sewcountrychick had made using this tutorial. Basically, you just fold the material up, and then iron fusible interfacing on the back. For extra stability I also sewed up across the pleats in various places. It worked wonderfully, and looked really nice.

All I had to do then was sew the three bits together, and put on some buttons on the waistband section. Luckily, what with the one I cut off in the middle and the ones I cut off the adjusted neckline, I had exactly the right amount to do the waistband and insert buttons. Result!

I am fairly pleased with the final result, it’s certainly much better. As usual I am not entirely convinced by myself in gathered skirts, it just emphasises the sudden jut out of my hips, and the inset panel pulls slightly more than it did when I assembled it. But never mind. It‘s a nice dress for summer and very pretty fabric. Plus it gave me lots of button and buttonhole practice. And was only £3!

"Sack to slinky" dress refashion

At last-the slump is broken! Admittedly not with any of the many UFOs I have been avoiding, but with a new refashion I bought last week, but nevertheless! And its even navy and white so it fits with my Spring Palette!

The dress (£2.50 from Shelter) was about 3 sizes too big, and really shapeless. It was a "killer" combination of squared necked shapeless smocked elasticated bodice with an over large tulip skirt (and lets face it, those are only flattering if they fit). But the fabric is really cute, with white outlined flowers on navy, and it had nice pin tucks and buttons on the otherwise underwhelming bodice!

As you can see, the original dress, was a misshapen sack that bore very little resemblance to my figure. Massive round the waist, no bust definition, weird baggy back where the smocking kicks in (very tight round the top and bottom, huge in the middle-sorry no picture of this wonderful detail) and no indication of where my waist or hips would even be. And the neckline sits in a very odd place and makes the whole thing just look weird.

Flattering huh. I look like I weigh about 3 stone more than I do!

Luckily though it was very easy to fix! Firstly I just undid the top button and folded down each side to make it a lovely curve v-neck. I then pinned out some pleats under the bust, along the line of the existing princess seams which led to the existing front pleats, so they are now bigger. I also took 2 inches off each side and did an odd scooped tuck out of the centre back to make it less poofy.

The end result is a little tricky getting it on and off, and a little tight under the arms when I reach forward, but otherwise I love it! I shall be wearing it this weekend down in London with my beautiful friends Shrob, Sarah and Sally. Clearly, as has been proved before, there is nothing like a self imposed out of nowhere deadline to make me do some sewing!