Thursday, June 6, 2013

1=2 (Clothing Recycling)

And now for something completely different...

My friend Amanda introduced me to the blog of the ReFashionista the other week and I was immediately hooked. I've done refashioning myself before, but haven't had the time or inspiration in the past year. However, after reading through several months of clothing recycling, I had to do some of my own.


This dress was a hand-me down that fit neither my sister nor I properly in the bust. However the skirt was a nearly perfect fit for me, so I decided to...


Chop it off and make myself a skirt!


All I had to do was turn it inside out and sew the fabric and lining together.


Turn it around, iron it, topstitch the edge, and voila! Skirt!


I wanted a bit more oomph to it though, so I used my pintuck foot to add three pintucks around the hem.


Now - VOILA!


I didn't want to waste the top, so I ripped out the zipper, turned it inside out and sewed up all the seams except one...


...including cutting it open down the middle...


I then inserted boning along the new middle openings, and closed up the remaining opening side seam in the lining. Lastly I added eyelets along the middle opening and:


Hey presto! An awesome medieval bodice!


My sister was kind of excited over her unexpected new costume.

3 comments:

LA said...

That's awesome. I want to do this sort of stuff with some of my old clothes, but I'm always scared I'll ruin them.

Amanda said...

Hurray! I'm glad sharing that link with you provided some inspiration =)

Elizabeth Amy Hajek said...

LA - you might end up ruining some pieces at first, that's why you want to start with something you never wear anyhow. Don't own something? Go pick out cheap stuff at your local thrift store. :)