Sunshine and Skirt from Sheet

This skirt was my refashioning project this weekend. It started out as an old bedsheet from the dollar-a-pound that I'd gotten for my fabric stash probably two years ago and then promptly never done anything with. I have a bunch of other vintage sheets that I want to dive into soon! The cotton is really easy to work with, and it's easy to find sheets with fun prints. (I also signed up for So Zo's Me Made May, so am going to want to add a few more spring pieces to my self-made collection before then.)


Source

I used this 1969 Simplicity pattern. I'd definitely make this one again, as it came together fairly quickly but still has some nice details like the darts on the front and the waistband that makes the top very neat.


Funny story...I was really pleased when I finished this with how I'm improving the construction quality of what I'm sewing and perhaps it doesn't immediately look homemade. So I wore this today to go walk around Harvard Square (needed to get new running shoes), and while I was there I walked through a couple of stores looking for a new white shirt. I was in American Apparel and one of the saleswomen there comes up to me and says, "I know this is going to sound funny, but I could swear I had a pillowcase and sheets in that pattern when I was a kid!" (She was confused that the same pattern would have been sold to a clothing company as well...at least I cleared that up for her!) So I suppose it is obvious that this might have been a sheet, at least to those who recognize it.


I hope everyone's had a nice weekend! I was glad to get some time outside today...the weather's acting more like the end of May than the middle of April. Even though we've had a fairly mild winter, I'm still really happy that spring seems to be here! This is the first time I've actually gone out in short sleeves and bare legs for months...certainly enjoying the moment of time before it moves into the heat of the summer. Which...well, tomorrow and Tuesday are supposed to be in the high 80's. So that could be soon.

Other than that, I've been keeping busy with work and such. We've got our big demo week coming up the week after next, so a lot of coding and creating that has to happen before then. Then my group's next big project launches in a month, so that's been keeping me busy as well. It's been great to watch things come together, though...always exciting when code works!

Another Installment of "Making Things Shorter"

Yesterday's refashioned jean skirt wasn't the only item being refashioned...where "refashioned" seems to mean "hemmed significantly shorter." I'd thrifted this dress ages ago, loving the purple shade and the velvet, but didn't end up wearing it because the overall effect was just too much purple velvet for me, and a bit too shapeless. I haven't yet found the proportions that work really well for me with long skirts/dresses...I used to wear velvet hippie maxi skirts all the time in college, but haven't managed to integrate them into my graduate school style easily.


With a cut and re-hem, this is now a great winter dress! (With tights, of course. Wouldn't dare wear this out in Boston on a winter day without them. Maybe two pairs of tights, depending on how cold it was.)



Somehow the weekend went quickly and brought around Monday again! This should be a busy week; a couple of lab projects getting into full swing, along with a mini fashion show for the sewing class that I took over January. I'll have to share some pictures of the skirt I made, once I get them! Any exciting plans for anyone this week?

Visual FBFF: Refashioning!

In alternate weeks for Fashion Beauty Friend Friday, we're doing visually-based posts hosted by a variety of FBFF members. I'm thrilled to be the host of today's roundup of refashioning posts!

As I told the group, a refashioned item of clothing is a piece of clothing that you've transformed in some way... whether that's by changing the color, changing the fit, using the fabric to come up with something new, adding details, removing details, whatever you can think of.

I decided to do a new quick refashion for today, starting with this thrifted wrap dress. I do like wrap dresses, and liked the soft, stretchy fabric of this one. But the sleeves were way too long, the hem hit at mid-calf (not my favorite length), and there was just too much of that bold print.


So, with the help of a pair of scissors to chop the hem and the sleeves, hemming the raw edges, and <20 minutes, I had a new dress that worked much better for me. (I could have probably even gotten away without hemming, if I'd made the cutting line a little neater.)



The pink shoes are possibly a little over the top. But I felt like something fun (and they're plastic, so will be okay if it does end up raining today...) I've got work, and then am meeting up with the boyfriend for dinner and a show tonight. Then onto a busy weekend!

Take a look at everyone else's refashions! And thanks to Katy for letting me host today!

Studded Skirt Refashion

My latest refashion started out with this:


I've never really thought of "punk" details (studs, safety pins, etc.) as part of my potential style options. But...for some reason, when I came across this studded belt at the dollar-a-pound, all I could think of was how fun it would be to take the studs off the belt and use them for a clothing refashion. I used a pair of pliers to straighten the prongs of the studs so I could pull them out of the belt, leaving me with a pile of studs.

At first I was thinking about using a few on the collar of a shirt, but this thrifted men's shirt decided it wanted to be made into a skirt. (I'd grabbed it for the boyfriend, not noticing the big logo on the front...)

So I cut across the shirt from armpit to armpit, and folded over the top of the piece and sewed it with enough space to form a casing for elastic. This seems to be my recipe these days for making a simple gathered skirt from a shirt.



Then it was time to pull out the studs and decorate! I chose to put studs along the curved hem of the piece, as well as covering up the buttons on the front. These particular studs are made of very soft metal, so I basically was able to bend the prongs into place with my bare hands.

I like how the finished piece is still fairly delicate, even with the studs...and I've still got more studs left over from that belt (which are mostly going into doing something on the collar left over from the shirt...), and another set from a second studded belt I'd found the same day. Now, what else can I add studs to?


I wore this to the Lab last week, and thought it worked quite well. Though perhaps I'd prefer wearing it on a day when I wouldn't just be sitting in front of my computer...I could definitely feel the studs pressing into the back of my legs by the end of the day.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend! I went to the Brimfield Antiques Show on Saturday, and brunch with my group at my adviser's house on Sunday...so a good weekend, but over very quickly...

Happy Birthday to Oona!

So Oona of oonaballoona from kalkatroona is having a virtual birthday party today, inviting guests in their handmade finery...I thought it'd be a great occasion to finally refashion a fancy frock I've had waiting in my pile. (If you haven't stopped by Oona's neck of the woods, you should. It's full of pretty things and humor and sewing inspiration.)

My dress for today's virtual shindig started out as this Steve McClintock number from (I'm fairly sure) the 1980's that I'd thrifted a while ago. Let's see...giant puffy sleeves, turquoise brocade, front peplum...check, check, and check. I actually saw another one of these dresses in another thrift store recently, and the design used to have one of those giant wrap collars and a bow in the middle as well. That much was at least removed before it got to me. But still...not quite a fabulous party dress for this era yet. (no, I'm not just going to wear it like this...)


But the body fit me quite well, I liked the color, and it had a terrific openwork detail in the back. So time for a refashion! I hacked off the sleeves next to the seam.


I then turned under the edges and finished them off, and cut about ten inches off the bottom to rehem.


And here's a dress hopefully fit for the party!



So happy birthday, Oona! And hope everyone else is having a good weekend as well! I've got a couple more posts I need to get up soon...updates on, say, where I've been while scarce around the internets the last couple of weeks (vacationing on a lake in Wisconsin with the boyfriend and his family. I learned to waterski!), and some of what I've been wearing...

A shoe refashion

This weekend, I refashioned another pair of shoes. I started with some cream pumps that I'd gotten at the dollar-a-pound quite a while ago...I'd worn them once or twice, but cream wasn't proving a really wearable shoe color for me. Also, as they were fairly old, they were already scuffed and had some dark smudges on them. Worthy of a renovation!


So I grabbed some nail polish...


Covered the trim and soles with masking tape, and painted away with the tiny nail polish brush:


After some detail work and a couple of coats in a few places, I had pink shoes with cream trim:



I wore them yesterday with a black-and-white floral dress for a bold bit of color (no pictures, sorry!). Definitely a lot of fun!

And, for the IFB Challenge #2, a brief haiku:

Refashioning time:
Old cream shoes plus nail polish...
Presto! New pink heels!

What else? I've been keeping up with my goals for Me-Made June of wearing at least one refashioned or self-made piece every day, but I haven't really been documenting the process this time around. I'm also going through a major decluttering phase...am completely hooked on decluttering and organization and home design blogs right now! However, this desire to clean up and streamline my closet and my apartment doesn't play so well with my pack-rat/magpie/lover of collecting beautiful things tendencies. For example, I read the forum posts on Unclutterer about things people are giving away/trashing/donating/getting out of their homes, and I find myself both inspired to clean out more myself and wishing that I lived near their thrift store so I could pick myself up some of those rejected items!

So, last weekend, I worked on cleaning out the wardrobe where I store my dresses (of which I have a ridiculous number...my style has swung very heavily to thrifted dresses in the past few years). I wanted it to look like this, with a small assortment of my favorite carefully-chosen pieces:

However, while my wardrobe looked like that, my bed, covered in the rest of the contents of the wardrobe, looked like this:


Reorganized and after some dresses that just don't fit me/look good on me/end up getting worn were given to Goodwill, the closet looked like this (a major improvement from before):


And here's what I'm wearing today, now that it's finally back to summer in Boston (after a week of rain, clouds, and temperatures in the 60s)...cleaning out my closet has reminded me of some pieces that will work well this season!


Dress: thrifted. Tank top: Express. Shoes: Nordstrom, thrifted. Earrings: Me-made.

Hope everyone is having a good last week of June! Can't believe it's almost July...

New dress refashion

It appears Blogger ate my last Paper Doll Project post and hasn't restored it, so I will post that again in a day or so if it doesn't come back up!

This week was pretty quiet, so I had a couple of relaxing evenings at home trying to dive into my refashioning pile. One of the items that emerged was this dress/coverup/thingie:


I'd gotten three of these cheap cover-ups that had been tossed into the dollar-a-pound pile, intending to piece together the fabric into a 60's-style dress. I actually managed to get the fabric for a new dress (made from a vintage pattern) out of just one of them, so I've got two more to play with still! Any ideas on what I should do with the rest of the fabric?


This was the second dress I'd made from this particular pattern...the first was an orange dress I'd hinted at a couple of weeks ago but haven't gotten decent pictures of yet. This time I'd fixed some of the errors that I'd made in the first attempt (like putting in the zipper too low), and I think this one turned out fairly well!


Hmm, you can see my slip in this one! I do like the back of the dress, though...I'll be using this pattern again, now that I've got the details worked out.

Details: Dress, refashioned. Belt, thrifted. Leggings, H&M, thrifted. Sandals, Miz Mooz, thrifted. Pink cardigan, thrifted.


Hope everyone is having a nice weekend so far! It's fairly quiet around here, which is nice for a change. Time for some organizing and cleaning, even a bit of reading and digging back into the sewing pile...

Men's Shirt to Blouse refashion

Last weekend I managed to make another stab at the pile of things waiting for refashioning, and ended up with this blouse.


I started with another dress shirt from that bunch of old clothing my brother had given me a bunch of months ago. I liked the delicate floral-ish print on this one, but clearly it needed some redoing to fit me.


I cut off the sleeves right outside the seam line so as to leave a somewhat-finished edge, then tried on the piece and pinned where my waist and bustline were. I then stitched a curve along the side to reshape the side seam to match those waist and bust measurements, flaring back out to the original seam at the hips. (You'll see in the photo on the right that I had to do this twice...the first new line still was too loose.) There's probably a better way of quickly refitting tops, but this worked all right for me! Then I trimmed the side fabric closer to the new seam.


And there we are...a long blouse/tunic thing. I'd started out hoping to be able to make it a dress, but there just wasn't enough fabric in the sleeves to compensate for how far away the hemline was from being a dress! So I can wear it as a tunic, or even better, tuck it in for a long blouse that won't pull out of my skirt if I lift my arms (anyone else have a problem with that?).


This outfit was basically what I wore yesterday, but with tights, a sweater, and oxford flats. Because apparently it is not QUITE spring yet here in the Northeast...or at the least is fluctuating back and forth between warm weather and colder weather unpredictably. It was amazingly lovely on Sunday, then cold yesterday and today... I'm now completely confused about how heavy of a coat I should bring at any given time.

Also, a sneak peek of my other weekend sewing project! (which I'm wearing today...so photos to come later!)


This week is off to a busy start... I'm choreographing a dance piece to be performed a week from Saturday, so my evenings are being spent leading very long rehearsals. It's also really an exercise for me in choreographic self-trust. I've been trained to create choreography with my performers in real time, but it's still a leap of faith for me to go into a 4-hour rehearsal without much idea what we'll be doing, trusting that I will have interesting things emerge from being in the space improvising with my cast of three others. It's a sustained, focused, creative effort, and one that I thoroughly enjoy, even when it scares the pants off me!

Quick and Easy Refashioning

After a month and a half of being completely busy (opera rehearsals and performances in Boston, flying out to Chicago the day after we struck the show, opera rehearsals and performances in Chicago, getting back just in time for the start of the lab's sponsor week, immediately followed by a set of concerts and lectures my group was involved in), Sunday was my first completely free day in a long time! And as Monday was Patriot's Day, I had the day off then as well. I think I'm not entirely sure what to do with free time, now. I did some apartment-cleaning, watched the Boston Marathon on television, and ran errands.

I also finally started tackling the pile of clothing in the corner of the apartment that's waiting to be refashioned. Someday I'll post pictures of that pile... (It is, in fact, a large pile.) First, I made two summer skirts from old men's dress shirts that used to be my brother's. They were both quite nice shirts, with light fabric and asymmetrical blue stripes.



I just cut a line straight across each shirt under the arms, then folded down the top of that cut piece, and sewed it in place with a channel big enough to thread some ribbon or bias tape through. Stuck a safety pin through one end of a piece of ribbon/bias tape, fed it through the channel, and tied the ends at the center where the shirt buttons meet.



And presto, two new summer skirts! The ribbon can be tied into a bow and worn out front, or tucked inside the skirt. (both of these could use a good ironing, I think...)




But today, it's cold and rainy and not nearly the summer weather I was imagining with those skirts. So I'm wearing another simple refashion in the form of a gray jersey tunic top that used to be a men's shirt. I just cut off about 6" off the end of each sleeve and rehemmed the edges...belted, I think it can pass for intentionally loose rather than just too big. For me, I've noticed that sleeve length is the major thing that signals whether a garment looks like it fits me or not. If the sleeves are too long, I look like a kid wearing my mom's clothing. So a simple sleeve trim here makes this comfortable top wearable!


Gray shirt: Express Men's from the brother, refashioned. Skirt: INC, thrifted. Boots, vintage via Ebay. Necklace, estate sale. Earrings, handmade. Belt, thrifted. Tights, LOFT.


So this outfit's comfortable and warm, which suits today's weather. Can't wait for the next warm and sunny days later this week! Is it spring yet where you are?

And the snow keeps coming down...

I wore this outfit on Monday, the one day this week where I could get away with cute shoes and not just snow boots. Tuesday it snowed even more, and all today we've been getting a lovely ice/snow/sleet/rain/"wintry mix." This outfit really started with the tunic top, which was Sunday evening's refashioning project. While cleaning up things last week, I had come across a number of black, gray, and red sweaters that I'd been keeping to refashion - some wool, some cashmere, some just acrylic -- all of which had issues like moth holes, seriously not fitting me, or being "I'm sure you can do something with this!" hand-me-downs from my family.


The body of a gray sweater of my brother's became the bottom. Then I took rectangles of fabric from two separate black sweaters, sewed a bit up one side to leave an armhole/draped sleeve, and sewed them to the waist with a zigzag stitch so edges didn't unravel. I attempted to leave as many existent hems and finished edges in place as I could! Then the middle seam was still pretty lumpy and not attractive, so I covered it up with a sash made from the sleeve of a red hole-filled sweater.


I'm pretty pleased with the result, though I think I still need to balance the sides a little bit and tack down the belt in more places around the waist. I especially like the open back, though it does require me to wear a tank top or something under it. But the whole piece was very comfortable!

Details: Sweater top, refashioned. Freestyle Revolution Jeans, thrifted. Black Roothy oxfords, Nine West. Tank top, Express.


And let me introduce you to my holiday-money shoes, deeply discounted Nine West oxfords. Ever do that thing where you put an item in your online cart and then leave it there while you try to convince yourself that you don't need it and should spend the money on something practical? Ever leave it there and keep debating for several days? Finally I figured that I really liked them if I kept coming back to them and having to try to argue myself out of them over again. And with a very good sale and free shipping, I think these were worth it! They're very comfortable, and I think I'll wear them a lot. Once the sidewalks dry out again, that is. Anyone else getting a bit tired of the endless snow?