Friday, January 8, 2010

I'm back in the game...

I'm participating in The Wardrobe Refashion Challenge once again.

4 month pledge

It's somewhat addicting as it allows me to combine 2 things I love: sewing and thrifting. So here's the first project from my current pledge period...

It was a weekend night in August or September when a friend and I came across a 5-patterns-for-5-dollars deal at Joann's (dinner and a fabric store, we live life on the edge as you can tell). I must have been out of my mind when I challenged my friend to make something from each of the 5 patterns we picked out with a deadline of tax day. (She actually sews from patterns whereas I rarely do, so this was a really kookie suggestion on my part). Seeing as that deadline is a few months away, I thought I should probably make the first effort at my part of that deal.


The "fabric" is a thrifted purple ladies polo shirt (IZOD in the 50-cent bin, hooray!) and the pattern is Simplicity 2570.


The necessary "before" shot...


It needed ironed, but why make the "before" look any better? Successful refashioning is about contrast. Here's a close-up of the fabric to give the original a bit more merit!

I also used some scraps from a ragged old grey undershirt that I acquired, since there wasn't enough fabric in the original shirt for the neck and arm-hole facings.


And the after...


I think it's pretty darn cute. Since I was limited by the size of the original shirt, I had to reduce the fullness of the middle front panel to about half of the pattern, but this might not be a bad thing because too much fullness can look a bit maternity. There are darts in the back which gives a nice shape, and I omitted the zipper since this is a knit. As I am prone to do with my refashions, I preserved the hem from the original shirt... I'm not sure if this makes me part genius or just generally lazy :)

Want to see what the other Wardrobe Refashion participants are up to? Click HERE.


7 comments:

  1. OMG that shirt came out so well! I'm totally going to go buy that pattern (or, rather, check through my pattern collection for something similar), and copy you!
    (saw you on WR, btw)

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  2. love, Love, LOVE it!!

    I like that you left out some of the fulness -- I think it is perfect the way you did it. I am making a mental note for when I get my pattern!

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  3. Awesome shirt! It fits you so well and is extremely flattering! Well done! (also saw you on WR!)

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  4. Looks great! Totally agree about the fullness/maternity thing. And retaining the original hem - I totally did that when I sewed doll clothes last fall. Why sew a hem if you don't have to? (more time for other sewing!)

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  5. I love it! That's one of the cutest refashions I've seen.

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  6. 1. Hem preservation = GENIUS!!!
    2. Loved your unironed shot. Another genius ;)
    3. It looks great!

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  7. Excellent! Very cute new top out of a very boring old polo shirt.

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