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!