black, white, and some good luck.

I wasn't even actively thrifting when I came across the item that started this refashion. I had met up with a girlfriend on a saturday night, and we needed to kill a bit of time between dinner and movie, so we walked by a consignment shop downtown and this vintage polyester skirt was on the sidewalk clearance rack for $2! I'm a S/M and it's an XL, so when I picked it out my friend said "uh, that's not your size" and I told her to have patience...

BEFORE: (the grid below is in inches, to give an idea of the scale/size)

I poked through my pattern stash, but decided to use an existing dress from my closet as the pattern, mainly because the bottom hem was straight across (like the skirt hem) rather than round for fullness. I had to unstitch the waistband to get the proper length of fabric. I folded the dress in half lengthwise with the side seams touching, and traced the pattern onto the skirt. The skirt's slit was in the center, but I moved it to the side for this short dress. The scraps were used to interface the neck and arms openings.

AFTER: A simple but classy b/w dress for $2 (found a long black zipper in my stash, what are the odds?). Plus, I know that no one else owns one like it! I put darts in the back and at the bust line, but the dress is still not as fitted in the waist as I generally prefer and additional darts in the front aren't an option, but I'll be wearing a white cardigan over this most the time anyway, so I'm happy with it.

Additional observations:

Add this to the list of reasons I'm becoming my mother when it comes to sewing... The slit in the front of the skirt appears to have originally gone all the way up to where the white appliqué stops. A previous owner had added some modesty by hand sewing the slit down to about half the original length. Polyester + hand stitching is not as clean looking as I wanted, and I needed to once again reduce the length of the slit, so I took apart the front of the dress so that it would be machine sewn throughout, and would lay nicely. I sure hope this new found perfectionism doesn't carry over into other realms of my life! Don't worry, that'll never happen, right mom?

one (plus) stash (equals) two

I really enjoy infomercials, or any commercial really, in which a product is promoted in juxtaposition to "the old way" of doing something. An example is for some car washing product, and the item being sold is filmed in bright colors while the inferior item or method is shown in black and white. The people in the latter shot always have bad posture and frustrated expressions ("oh, filling a bucket with water to wash my car is so awful... isn't there a better way?")

Well, that's how my "Before" picture looks today. It was not intentional, I promise! Just the combination of bad lighting and poor fit, but it's the "Before" and if there wasn't anything wrong with it in the first place, why would I have refashioned it?

BEFORE:

Thrifted 1970's double-knit skirt.

AFTER:

"But wait... There's more! If you call within the next 15 minutes we'll throw in a shirt as well!"

So as not to waste all that fabric that was sliced off the bottom of the skirt, I fashioned myself a little top using some soft double-stretch fabric from my stash.

The yoke and cap sleeves are from my converted version of this (free) Burda pattern.

I also picked up a copy of the Alabama Stitch Book recently, and decided to throw down a bit of reverse applique to give this top some much needed personality.

Happy Sewing!

A Classic Refashion: Oversized to Fitted Shirt

This is a pretty generic refashion, but I figured I'd post a quick tutorial just in case anyone wanted to skip past thinking about how to make a larger button-up shirt into something smaller. This way you can jump right in.

I found this XL Women's shirt in the 50-cent bin at my favorite thrift store, it's a quality brand, nice linen fabric, and in great shape with the exception of a bit of discoloration in the underarms. But that's no matter because that portion of the shirt will be cut away.

Tutorial note: Men's shirts would also work great as they often come is larger sizes, and are less likely to have existing tailoring or darts that you would need to work around.

BEFORE:

First I looked through my pattern stash and found a button-up dress pattern that I've used before and knew was a good fit. (Butterick B4185 to be exact, it's from 2004, not sure if it's still available but you should be able to find something similar if you don't have a button-up pattern already in your stash) A shirt pattern would be a more obvious selection, but I was trying to use what I already had :)

Next I cut the sleeves away, and lined up and pinned the front portions of the shirt, hem to hem, seam to seam, button to button hole. I placed the pattern front so that the top shoulder seam didn't line up exactly with the edge of the pattern, as you want it to overlap 5/8" -- the amount that you would have normally use for a seam allowance. This is important, otherwise the sleeve may not fit correctly.
Then the same is done with the back pattern, again letting the pattern lay 5/8" over the pre-sewn shoulder seam. Be sure to line up the outermost corner of the sleeve with the cut already made to the front.

If your pattern has darts or other tailoring marks, follow the instructions to fit the shirt to your body shape. I shortened the front darts slightly so that they would not interfere with the details on the existing shirt front.

Next, sew the side seams (unless your pattern calls for sleeves to be sewn in prior to side seams, in which case you should just follow the pattern instructions.)

As for the new sleeve, I opted to cut from the lower portion of the old sleeve to keep some of the detailing near the cuff. (the bottom cuff is pleated, so it may look like I didn't cut out the sleeve wide enough, but I promise that I did)
I thought I might keep the entire cuff, but I eventually cut off the bottom portion since it fell at my elbow wouldn't button comfortably. If the shirt you are using is large enough, you might be able to make a short, 3/4 length, or even a long sleeve while maintaining the original cuff.

Sewing in the sleeve is the only challenging part of this refashion, but just remind yourself how much time and potential frustration you avoided by not having to sew a collar or button placket!

Lastly I hemmed the bottom of the shirt. It was far too long if I kept the original length, plus the front and back were different lengths after sewing darts.

AFTER:

Enjoy! For other refashioning ideas, be sure to check out all the wonderful bloggers that have taken the Wardrobe Refashion Pledge!

Tiny T-shirt Refashion

So many refashions seem to be taking big clothes and making them much smaller (example: adult clothes to toddler clothes) But I found this too-small long sleeve t-shirt in the 50-cent bin at the thrift outlet and I couldn't resist the cute print...

So I rummaged around until I found another 50-cent shirt in the teal color. It's an old men's polo.

I disassembled the shirt and sewed the sleeves between the front and back pieces to be come sides.

I made a pattern for the front and back yokes using the neckline and sleeve-hole portions of a burda pattern, and then cut the yokes from the teal fabric.

Then the bottom was cut from the print fabric. Since the front yoke ends higher than the back, the print fabric needed to come up higher in the front, so the previous shirt-back became the shirt-front.

The tops of the original sleeves were still left-over, so I made them into short sleeves, and sewed on the (already hemmed) bottom of the polo shirt sleeves as trim.

Lastly, I mimicked the circles from the print fabric by stitching in white onto the teal yoke... it was pretty simple, I'm not sure that it even counts as embroidery.

Shirt front:

Shirt back:
Here's a detail of the lazy-embroidery:

I'm very happy with it, especially for a $1 shirt!