Summer Skirt into a Top

These last few days I’ve been transfixed by news of the flooding in Queensland. The internet is both good and bad when disasters happen, making you want to watch – feel like you should be watching as your heart goes out to people affected – but then it starts to feel a bit voyeuristic.

And suddenly posting about crafting seems trivial, but also a welcome distraction. Anyway, here’s a post I prepared earlier. It’s cheap and cheerful. (Rather than, as in a lyric I heard the other day ‘expensive and sad’.)

A couple of months ago, all inspired by refashioning, I popped into a small local op shop to see if there was anything there with potential. I came home with an oversized shirt which I turned into a sleeveless top, and this:

I really liked the fabric – a light cotton with a lovely print:

The skirt was just two rectangles sewn together down the sides with elastic at the waist. I could have simply removed the elastic and taken advantage of there already being slits down either side to make another top like this one. But I don’t like the way bra straps show under that style, so I went for another one like this and this.

That meant removing the elastic, turning the skirt upside down and chopping off some fabric for the sleeves. (The elastic has been removed in this pic, but the material was still crinkled from it.)

Then sewing the sleeves in where the slits were, closing the sleeve seam and the rest of the slit.

And then sew a hem for the elastic around the necklines, and plain hems around the sleeves and waist.

The top turned out to be a bit tight around the hips, so I shortened it. I’m pretty pleased with how it came out, though I think this style works best when there’s more volume of cloth around the body.

And now I have another summery top to wear. Trouble is, what started as a cull of clothing in order to make more space in my wardrobe has led to most of what I culled going back in as new garments. And more going in as I refashion Paul’s old shirts. And then these refashioned op shop clothes.

So I’m trying to put the brakes on the refashioning. I still have a few projects waiting in the wings that I want to do, but I’m telling myself I won’t be adding to that. If I venture into an op shop, I will be averting my eyes from the garment section. (I’m not deluded enough to think I could ever stick to an overall op-shop ban.)