Creative Sewing: refashioning

I finally took the plunge and hacked up some of my precious me-made clothes. I took some of the dresses that I had never worn (or worn once and felt incredibly uncomfortable in) and turned them into skirts. This would serve the dual purpose of:

1. Allowing me to get some actual wear out of things I spent time and money on
2. Giving me new skirts and thus possibly slowing down the All The Tulip Skirts train

Here are the first two!

Refashion number one: Green Butterick 4443

Original:

Refashion:

I took the top off the dress, drafted a waistband (and by "drafted a waistband" I mean "drew a rectangle"), and inserted a concealed zip. One of the reasons I never wore this dress was that I considered my zip work to be extremely shoddy, so it was good to have a chance to correct it. I still had a ton of leftover fabric from this dress to make a waistband, which I'd meant to get rid of and never bothered. Yay laziness!

I'd forgotten that I was still being overly cautious with my sizing when I made the dress originally, so I'd taken in the side seams quite some way. For the skirt I decided to make two little pleats in the front instead, which I much prefer to my previous technique of "haphazardly taking an inch off the seams at the waist then veering outwards wildly at the hip point".

I'm really glad to get some life into this one, because I love the colour so much (my camera is still refusing to record the actual colour of this material - I swear it's bright emerald green in real life). In dress form it always felt simultaneously too dressed up (because style and colour) and too casual (because bog standard cotton) for any occasion I might want to wear it. It's much less of a problem in skirt form and has already made its way into regular rotation. Success!

Refashion number two: 80s Wren

Original:

Refashion:

Didn't bother changing my top, because a) favourite top and b) lazy. Not ideal for an actual sunny day, I'll admit.

This one was basically always going to end up this way. When I put the skirt together and tried it on (I made the skirt part first because I was worried it would be terrible) I thought "hey, this is a really great skirt. Maybe I should stop here and just have this skirt." There was never going to be room in my life for this kind of pink and black sleeveless thing, particularly not with all the trial-run fit issues in the bust, so it's good to have returned it to a wearable state.

Basically all I did was unpick the top, fold in the raw edges and topstitch under the elastic, and it's now a perfect work/being presentable skirt. Very pleased.

This was a really good project to do. As well as helping me realise that I have the skills to make separates out of any dress I choose, it's also made me a little less pointlessly sentimental about things I make. I am wearing my new green skirt as I type this, which just wouldn't be happening if it was still a dress. I have another refashion currently in the works and will be keeping it in mind for the next time I sort through my less-worn handmade stuff (which is happening more or less on a monthly basis at the moment as I struggle to cut down on the amount of shit I own prior to boxing it all up and transporting it across London).

I'd like to leave you with the most inexplicable photo I took yesterday, where I am apparently rather shocked at what I can see in my own house and also have my head on backwards.