A couple of quick refashions

...And so the procrastination continues. :P

Yesterday, when I had all the time in the world to write my BA thesis, naturally I ended up doing spring cleaning in my fabric / refashion stash. Which means I dumped everything from my fabric cupboard shelf and the growing pile of fabric in the corner of our bedroom onto the bed and sorted them out. See, I do this on occasion and then for a little while my fabric piles are neatly stashed and I can see every piece of fabric by just glancing into the cupboard. But then I buy more, and just stuff them into the cupboard, and then pull out some fabric to use it and stuff the remaining fabric back... And then all of a sudden it's a messy lump of fabric that looks like it might gain sentience any given moment.

I also have two cardboard boxes' worth of items I have bought secondhand and are in need of some fixing. They usually end up forgotten in the box, but yesterday I dug them out too and ended up fixing a few. So yeah, procrastination continues.

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I pulled out this frumpy old frock:

It was quite awful. The length was an unflattering "almost-ankle" and the waistline was too low for my body type. And let's not even go into the gathered not-quite-elbow-length sleeves...

I measured the length I wanted the dress to be and chopped.

I then cut out the sleeves.

Since the top was lined, I hemmed the sleeves by turning both the lining and the top layer of fabric inwards and then I top-stitched along the edge of the armhole so the raw edges were encased in the seam.

This left the armholes a bit too big, but since I had planned on lifting the waistline, this was more than good: I could simply fold the shoulder seams under a couple of inches to deal with the too-big armholes and the low waistline both at the same time! Killing two dress problems with one seam, so to speak. :)

And then it was done!

Now I have a neat summer dress for when it gets warmer. And it looks totally awesome, which is saying something because in the beginning it was anything but awesome. :D

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Another thing I made during my cleaning frenzy was Make Thrift Buy Community's this month's challenge. The challenge was to take a band/movie t-shirt and turn it into something new.

I had this Wathcmen t-shirt which I bought in 2009 I think? I hadn't used it in years, but it was still hanging in my refashion pile because I really liked the print in the front.

I chopped the front and cut out a few pieces of black jersey and serged together this:

I sewed the back seam, added a jersey waistband and encased a wide elastic band in it. Then I simply hemmed the garment and I had a nice, stretchy skirt:

And here's how it looks worn:

The jersey material clings onto my legs if I'm wearing tights, so it's definitely more of a summer skirt. But it's really comfy and nice to wear because it's so stretchy. Can't wait until it gets warm enough to wear it outside without tights!

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So, I managed to complete two refashions and clean up my fabric / refashion stash in one day. Go me! (Then again, BA thesis: 0 words written. Oh well...)

What do you think of these refashions? :)

love,
Satu / Sew Scoundrel