Time for a big wardrobe cull.

Actually, I used to do this during the Christmas to New Year break, because Paul would have bought me the latest Trinny & Suzanna book and it always inspired a wardrobe review and cull. But last year I discovered the New Dress a Day blog and the cult of refashioning, and there’s something about the onset of warmer weather that makes me want to attack my clothes.

This year I was determined not to spend a lot of time refashioning, because there are other things I want to be doing. As it turned out, I didn’t need to be worried. Most of what I culled wasn’t refashionable. I’ve got a little bit bigger around the hips and waist and, thanks to a very painful bout of water retention, let’s just say most of the culled garments used to clothe my top half. It’s a lot harder to adjust clothing that is too small than too big.

The easiest refashion was to turn a wrap dress into a warp skirt by removing the top. I also dug out this old denim skirt, which is one of the few items of clothing I made during my big sewing obsession of my 20s that I was really pleased with. I stopped wearing it only because I got a bit tired of it, and it was a bit too 90s for the 00s.

Denim is back. And the 90s, apparently. So I decided to replace the waistband with some fabric from an old pair of jeans, and get a bit more use out of it around the house.

But the next refashion was a lot more fun. Proper seat of the pants sewing, with no pattern. I had a couple of tops and a dress that didn’t fit, and four singlet tops that I’d bought on sale that had distorted after I washed them.

The arrows point to the top and bottom of the ‘side’ seam. Sometimes cheap really means cheap. I’d bought them more because they were stripy, and I was into stripy at the time (not so much now I’m so ample at the front) so I was more than a little displeased at that clothing store.

I did a bit of mix and match until I had some colours that worked together.

Then I cut the tops into wedge shapes.

And a t-shirt into a waistband.

And the skirt of the dress into eight panels.

Then I got sewing, using my overlocker (serger) to join all the pieces.

I was a little concerned it was going to look like a circus tent, but it doesn’t. Mostly it’s black with a peep of colour here and there. A comfortable, casual skirt for summer.

I have a mens shirt I wan’t to refashion into a top like this one I did last year, and that was supposed to be it for this season’s refashioning. But then I saw this. That’ll be another post.