Here’s the line up:

Two skivvies to chop up. I don’t like the gathers at the neck, so the collars have to go. I’m thinking of shortening the sleeves and then finishing them and the neckline with herringbone stitch – perhaps with coloured thread.

Two long summer skirts. Both too sheer to wear on their own, so I wear the plain one under the patterned. Main problem is the gathered waists. They’re unflatteringly bulky. I’m going to cut off the waistbands (which will shorten them so I stop tripping up stairs), add darts to reduce bulk, then redo the waistband with both skirts sewn together.

I had another pair of winter weight skirts lined up for shortening, but now that I think about it, no amount of shortening will make up for the fact that they’re too tight at the waist. No, these are going to the op shop.

On the other hand, there’s a skirt and a dress that don’t need altering, but I think I can update them by changing the colour. Looks like there’ll be a dyeing post to write here some time in the future.

A couple of months back, inspired by Project Runway, I did some tweaking of my wardrobe. Instead of the usual cull followed by a shopping trip, I decided to see if I could revive some of the garments I already had with a little cutting and sewing. I refashioned two tops, and put the rest aside to consider how I might do the same to them. Recently I’ve been inspired to tackle them.

Like this dress:

It wasn’t that I didn’t like the dress, but I’d worn it quite a bit and it was time to give it a another life as a new kind of garment. I cut it short and moved the black mesh to the new hemline, then added little sleeve caps. All handstitched.

Next I made a top out of a wrap skirt. I love the soft cotton fabric and the design concept – in fact I’ve made a pattern based on it. But the problem with it is that there isn’t quite enough overlap, and if I sit down or the wind blows it can open up to a rather indelicate extent.

I got to thinking about drawstring peasant tops, hunted down a pattern on the internet and tried it with some old offcuts of fabric basted together. The neck was crazily high, so I went looking in some old books of mine from my pattern designing days (hobby, not work). The pieces were so close to rectangular that I got to thinking, what’s the bet this traditional pattern was originally made up of square shapes?

So I did some measuring and cutting of squares and rectangles, basted together one test version, altered the pattern then made this:

The body is one piece, incorporating the curved bottom of the skirt. I put buttons up the front because the original garment had a curved hem, and to put the curve at the sides of the top would have meant a lot of unpicking, cutting and sewing to make the sides match. The drawstring top I based this on would normally have a plain, undivided front – two squares sewn up the sides. It is, again, handstitched. Because I couldn’t be bothered clearing off the top of my work table to make room for the sewing machine.

All that snooping around on the internets also led me to this pattern – another garment made up of rectangles. Snooping in my fabric stash for offcuts to test patterns with, I found a short length of white rippled cotton fabric that I’ve been keeping because whatever I made from it wouldn’t need ironing. I got handstitching again, and soon had this top:

Since the fabric is little bit sheer, so a bra is necessary, but the bra straps show a little, I’ll probably only wear this at home. It should be nice and cool in summer.

I have some more garments lined up for a bit of refashioning. This time I’ve been organised enough to take some before shots. I may even get the sewing machine out, too.