Just recently I’ve been returning to my refashioning roots. I picked up the outfit on the left for the grand total of £5.98 from a charity shop. A simple oversized black silk shirt, and some kinda frumpy jeans in a lovely berry purple colour. After I’d gone at them with some scissors and a sewing machine, I was left with the outfit you see on the right. I’m pleased with how striking the difference between the two outfits is. That’s really what I wanted to show. How different frumpy charity shop finds can be with a few tweaks; and I think I’ve achieved that here. Although I’m not sure how much I’ll wear the top in reality. It was an idea I wanted to try out, and I really like how it turned out. I’m just not convinced it’s “me”. Know what I mean?
It all turned out pretty much as I had envisioned it; apart from the top having no sleeves. I had planned some slim elbow length sleeves. But the peplum section needed much more fabric than I had first thought. So I ended up using every useable scrap of fabric on that and had nothing left for the sleeves. (Actually, I think technically it’s a “ruffle” disguised as a peplum! Aren’t peplums cut as circular pieces?)
This top involved completely deconstructing the original shirt, re cutting the pieces and reconstructing it into it’s new form. Excluding finishing techniques the main points are essentially as follows:
1) I cut off the sleeves and collar close to the seams.
2) I lopped (technical term that!) off the bottom section of the shirt at waist height, and set aside for later
3) Then seperated the front and back pieces, and recut the necklines and armholes
5) I created a long loop of fabric using fabric from the bottom section I’d lopped off earlier, and what I could harvest from the sleeves.
6) Gathered the loop of fabric and stitched to the waistline of the new bodice
