I’ve been saving a couple of Paul’s old shirts to refashion for a couple of years now. By ‘old’ I don’t necessarily mean worn, just that they didn’t fit or he just didn’t like them.

The first one I tackled was a dark blue shirt that I’d originally fancied trying to make into shorts. Now I had simpler plans. I’m liking these chambray and faded denim shirts in fashion right now. This shirt has metal buttons and the blue might fade nicely with a bit of bleach. Hmm.

Step one was to simply make it fit me, and the most challenging bit was to redo the sleeves. I used a shirt I’d designed and made back in the 90s as a template, since I still have the pattern pieces, then checked the shape against a commercially-produced shirt.

It was more fluke than expertise, but I was pretty chuffed when the sleeve fit the body perfectly.

Working with the dress model definitely helps, especially when you get sick of trying things on. Though I always check that what I’m doing will work on me too, before doing anything I can’t reverse.

The last step, which I did on Monday, was the bleaching. This produced some surprises. The shirt bleached back to a lighter shade, but I also got these splash dots and amoeba like shapes:

Which I decided I don’t mind, since none of them were in embarrassing places:

The next refashion was meant to be another sleeveless shirt, inspired by a previous shirt to sleeveless-top project that worked really well.

But when I saw the shirt sans sleeves on the dress form I didn’t like it. A bit too country’n'western for me. Also, I could see that the darts it would need at the armholes to fit well wouldn’t suit the more casual style of the shirt. So, bolstered by the success of the previous shirt sleeve redo, I trimmed the sleeves and put them back on.

I like it, though I’m hoping it hasn’t headed in the other direction – looking like part of a uniform, especially a school uniform. It may need a touch of punk. Perhaps some skull buttons.

The last refashion of the day involved getting further away from the original shirt-y ness of a shirt. I started with a quite generous cheesecloth shirt:

The aim was to end up with something between this and this.

I cut off the sleeves, then chopped off the top quite low to remove the yoke at the back. The new neckline and armholes were very simple shapes, width and length estimated from other garments, and the sides were just a matter of taking the body in with a little flare at the bottom to make room for hips. I’d shortened the other two shirts, but because I’d cut so much off the top of this one I didn’t need to here, so I kept the shirt tails and saved myself some hemming.

Then I tried it on and discovered that it didn’t look as good on me as it did on the dress form. I’d kept the pleats at the back of the yoke, placing them at the neck. This meant the back poofed out in a strange way. From the front the silhouette was all very square, and after trying some belts with it I decided gathering at the waist wouldn’t work so well with the button front.

So on the back I mirrored the pleat at the waist:

And used the same device at the front:

The resulting top is… interesting. Certainly feminine and shapely. I’d always planned to dye it because there were two little stains on the front, but instead I bleached them out so I could leave it white.

I have a couple of garments left to refashion: the black skirt (which I’m not sure is worth the effort), the infinity dress (into skirt or dress?), the velvet dress (intimidating) and the Maiocchi dress (perhaps I can simply let out the seams).

On Saturday I started the day by making a few headbands out of an old skivvy and long-sleeved t-shirt. Sewing stretchy material seems to require a different thought process and to get a feel for the way the fabric and sewing machine interact I find I benefit from a bit of a warm up.

Which is why I started with a garment that had seen better days. I loved this top but I’d grown a bit big around the chest for it. It was looking a bit worn so it wasn’t good enough for the op shop, though not so much that I couldn’t get another season’s wear out of it.

Early last year I fixed a too-tight t-shirt by adding panels down the sides. I figured if I took the arms off I could do the same with this top. I’d just culled most of my sleeveless stretch tops so I could do with a ‘new’ one.

I was pretty happy with the result, though the armholes were more fiddly than expected:

Next I tackled this cowl-neck top that Mum gave me. It was too big, and I don’t like 3/4 length sleeves. I was hoping to do a similar refashion to the chocolate skirt I made out of a t-shirt a few years back.

Of course, it had occurred to me that the cowl might make a ready-made waistband. I tried it on and if anything it was a little loose. I then got the idea that all I needed to do was cut the underarm seam and reattach the sleeves to the body. The only problem was that the sleeves were shorter than the body, so I had to shorten the entire skirt.

I came to regret cutting it, because the fabric was very difficult to work with and the only way I could get an okay hem was to satin stitch it so it went curly. Then it turned out that the way the skirt hung made it scoop up at the front, so I wound up reattaching the piece I’d cut off so it wasn’t too short.

Overall, not 100% happy with this refashion. Well, you can’t win them all. I’ll try wearing it at home, and if I don’t like it then it’ll be cut up for rags. Still, I do think there’s potential in this method of making a skirt out of a top – so long as the fabric has drape and the sleeves are full length.

Moving on to standard t-shirt material was a relief.

I was planning to make this a bat-winged shirt, but though it was an XL it still wasn’t big enough for that. So instead I went for a sleeveless-but-not-singlet style t-shirt shape. Then, to hide the fading at the fold lines, I hung it in a bucket of bleach.

Bleach proved a lot less predictable than dye. I like how it came out, though. It’s certainly better than a boring square with fade lines!

This is the list I wound up with, after reviewing what I’d put aside and editing out a few things:

EASY PEASY
White shirt – shorten sleeves & body
Striped skirt – lengthen slit at back a little – DONE
Black skirt – shorten & add decoration/trim
Velvet dress – make lower half into skirt

MORE FIDDLY
Brown long-sleeved top – remove sleeves & add panels to sides – DONE
Infinity dress – cut off straps to make it a skirt, or stitch straps together to make it a dress
Maiocchi dress – let out seams or refashion top part to fit

REQUIRING MORE WORK
Ombre grey top – knit skirt – DONE
Modern art t-shirt – reduce size – DONE – and dye bleach
Men’s red shirt – make into sleeveless top – DONE
Blue mens shirt – take in – DONE then bleach
Velvet dress – jacket
White cheesecloth shirt – make into top – DONE(dip dye?)

I did some sketching a few nights ago:

Since then I’ve changed my mind about a few things. When I tried on the white shirt to work out how much to shorten the sleeves I realised it really was too small for me, so it went into the op shop pile. A second look at the t-shirt told me it wasn’t big enough for the shape I wanted to cut it to, and I think I’ll bleach rather than dye it.

Yesterday I tackled four garments. Today? Today I’m going to see how many of the mens shirts I can refashion.

Spring is in the air, and for me that means it’s wardrobe culling time. I used to do this in the last week of the year, thanks to Paul giving me the latest Trinny & Suzanna book for Christmas, but since I started refashioning I find spring is a better time as I can still remember what I did and didn’t wear over winter and it’s not too hot to try wintery clothes on for fit.

So how do I cull? Well, I try everything on and remove clothes that:

– don’t fit or look flattering
– I don’t like any more, never liked, or never wear
– look worn out and tired
– need mending

Then I divide them into clothes to:

– cut into rags
– give to the op (charity) shop
– mend
– alter
– refashion

At the same time I note what I’m generally liking more or less, wearing more or less, need to replace, and that kinds of garments I don’t own but might like to add.

This year’s cull:

I got stuck in last week and tried everything on except the t-shirts. Every year I doubt I’ll find anything to remove and every year I find at least ten or more items I’m happy to get rid of.

Cut into Rags: four singlet tops and one refashioned skirt (looking worn and saggy)

Op shop: a pair of pants, a dress and several long-sleeved t-shirts, one evening top (too small), summer top (too big), a shop-bought jumper/sweater and a silk shirt (don’t wear)

Mend: a shirt and skirt (zippers), three shirts (press studs to add to stop gaping at front)

Alterations: Shirt (shorten sleeves and body), casual skirt (lengthen slit at back to make walking easier), evening skirt (shorten & ‘jazz up’ a bit).

Refashion: A too-large knit top Mum gave me (into skirt), too-small brown long-sleeved top (into sleeveless top), infinity dress (into skirt or different sort of dress), Maiocchi dress (let out seams or refashion top)

As always, I review my refashioning ambitions after the cull. Calculating how much time I’m going to have to spend sewing – on top of what is already waiting to be refashioned – is an amazingly effective motivation to move something into the op shop pile. In this case the op shop pile trebled in size.

Notes:
Liking more: tights/skirt combo at home, cotton tops/shirts rather than t-shirts, skirts made of stretch material that don’t need ironing
Liking less: cargo pants (SO over them!), tight-fitting long and short-sleeved t-shirts, cheesecloth pants

Wearing more: cotton pants, cotton tops/shirts, skirts made of stretch material, fleecy and shop-bought jumpers & cardys
Wearing less: cargo pants, trakkie dacks, tight-fitting t-shirts, handknits

Need to replace: singlet tops with looser fit sleeveless tops, cheesecloth pants with some other kind of light summer pants

Might add: long casual summer skirts, preferably in stretch material

I did the mending straight away and re-ironed a few things that had got squished in the too-full wardrobe. Today I’m planning to tackle the alterations, mostly because they’re quick and it quickly shrinks the pile of garments waiting to be worked. When they’re done I’ll do a few of the refashions.

As you can imagine, after my experience with the infinity dress I abandoned ideas of turning the op shop skirt into one. It still needed altering as it was too tight. I was tempted to keep the gauze overskirt as they are in fashion right now, but it was the one part of the garment that was looking a bit old and the fabric beneath was too interesting to cover up. I removed the gauze, trimmed off some fabric at the waist and added a waistband:

You can’t really see it in a photo, but he circles are kind of refracting/glittery like the back of cds.

When I discovered that one of my little black evening bags had turned a faded grey, I refreshed it with some silver paint and a circle cut from the offcuts of the skirt fabric pinched into a bow.

The skirt and bag combo were worn to another event. I think it’s a keeper.