Me-Made-May 2016: Week 3

Week 3 has been and gone. It was one busy week! On Monday (Day 16) I went to work straight from the train station, so I was wearing pretty much what I wore to Paris. By this time I obviously couldn’t wait to get the stuff off me, otherwise those pants are made for long days! Unlike Saturday’s (Day 21) black, experimental silky pair…I am so getting rid of those. For getting snacks from the shop next door it’s just alright, but I am in constant fear of ripping them, they pull at places  and there is that weird flap on the front. It’s everything I don’t want my clothes to be.

Wearing the kimono dress with the military jacket on a great day out on Brick Lane yesterday, was one of those things that remind me why I’m sewing in the first place. 🙂

Day 16

• Trousers: Modified Burdastyle trousers
• Top: Self-drafted/copied camisole

Day 17

• Dress: Dior inspired dress
• Jumper: Thrifted for £1!!! 🙂

Day 18

• Jacket: Refashioned military jacket
• Skirt: Self drafted leather skirt (unblogged)
• Jumper/top underneath: RTW jumper/bodysuit underneath 

Day 19

• Trousers: as above
• Top: Burdastyle shirt

Day 20

• Top: Self-drafted bodysuit
• Skirt: Self-drafted pencil skirt

Day 21

• Trousers: Self-drafted trousers
• Top: Camisole top (self-drafted/copied)

Day 22

• Dress: The kimono dress (self drafted)
• Coat: The military jacket (refashioned)

As I am getting closer to finish Me-Made-May I started wondering what I should do with the clothes I did not pick up  to wear, or those that don’t fit me quite right.

Do you give up your unworn me-mades for charity, sell them or  recycle them?

Like it?

I impulse-bought these in the charity shop for £4 each today. I have very vague ideas of what to make of them, but the thick cotton looks like it wants to be a kimono jacket kind of thing, the bright blue jersey would make a great dress, and the bottom one might become a pencil skirt and a jacket. It might.

Thrift Store Thursdays #2

Yet another batch of my thrift store finds. The balance this time was roughly £7.00.

This jacket was actually for free. A dear colleague of mine who was about to embark on a journey to live the American dream, brought some clothes she was bored of into the office. In spite of being about a size larger, this was the piece I was interested in. I really like the unexpected mix of colours in the checked pattern, the neutral base colour, that it’s double-breasted and the pockets. It’s a very light fabric with no lining in it so it would make a great summer jacket with little dresses after the necessary alterations are made. (Although fitting a bigger sleeve seems impossible right now as I started to sew a shirt and ended up taking it all apart as it was too big, and haven’t been able to correct the mistake ever since, so this might just be a project for Autumn.:))

The dress above is from Next and was £40 originally, according to the tag that is still attached. I have never worn this dress, but I loved the ’40s style and bright red colour of it. I have a thing for red dresses, even though unlike the little black/white dresses, it’s very hard to find an eye-catching yet simple one that lets the colour do all the talking. Something like this gorgeous Lanvin one:

 

Image source: Pinterest

 

DIY beaded skirt in under an hour

Do you remember this dress I bought a few weeks ago at a thrift store for about £3? Even though it was about 2 sizes larger and I could not picture it on myself at all, I decided to bring it home with me.

It wasn’t only because it was really cheap, but I have tried to sew sequins and beads on garments before and so I knew what a gift it is to have a piece of fabric that is 100% silk and full of hand sewn beads in the fabric pile, just in case. I bought it on the same day as the Zara skirt and I liked how that one looked cool because of its simple design (an elastic band on the waist)- and chic because of the silk scarf print. I thought this could might as well work on this dress if I cut it  in half, so that’s what I did. It was simple as that.

Okay, maybe not just that simple, but I only made one mistake and could correct it after 20 minutes wasted right away, so instead of long instructions, here is the recipe for successfully turning a dress into a skirt in no time!

1. Measure the length of your new skirt (add at least 5 centimeters on top of the desired length).
2. Mark it on the dress and cut it (this is the scariest part, I promise!)
3. Switch your sewing machine to zigzag stitch and neaten the raw edges.
4. Decide how long you want the frill on top of the skirt to be, then mark this and pin it down, inside out.
5. Stitch the top seam (mine is 3 cm from the top).
6. Put the elastic band below the first seam. Hold it there as close as you can, secure the ends with pins and sew below it.
7. Try on the skirt pulling the elastic to the right fit. Secure this with a pin and take the skirt off carefully.
8. Stitch the ends of the elastic bands to the skirt and clear the inside of the skirt up.

Click on the photos to enlarge them!

The inspiration for it all.

The casing for the elastic waistband on the Zara skirt.

Step 1: Measure the length of your new skirt.

Remember to add at least 5 centimetres on top of the desired length.

Step 2: Mark it on the dress.

Cut it.

Step 3: Switch your sewing machine to zigzag stitch first and neaten the raw edges.

The dress had a lining, so I pinned the two layer together before sewing.

Step 4: Measure the seam allowances needed. (I left 3 cms for the frilly part + 1 cm for the elastic waistband + ~1 cm for seam allowance.)

Step 5: Stitch the upper seam.

The elastic band goes right below the first seam, in between the two sides of the fabric.

Secure the ends of the elastic band before making the second seam.

Step 6: Finish the casing for the elastic band with the second seam.

Step 7: See how it fits best and secure the ends of the elastic band with pins.

Step 8: Sew it from the outside so that you stay in the line of the original side seam of the skirt.

This is how mine looks from the inside…

…and voila!

Remember to cut once, measure twice(!), but do not worry too much as it will be hard to spot the length differences since it isn’t supposed to be staying straight on your waist anyway.

The mistake I made was making the casing for the waistband before I inserted it. The casing was just big enough to put it in on the first few centimetres but I could not find a way to pull it through the whole skirt, so after half an hour of intense suffering I gave up on it, acknowledged my mistake, patted myself on the shoulder and well…ripped the second seam out.

Despite this tiny little failure, this skirt is still one of the cheapest/easiest/best looking projects as of yet, so good luck for anyone thinking about giving it a try!

Thrift Store Thursdays #1

After my first kind of lucky/definitely adrenaline boosting trip to a thrift store, I decided to go back for more….Next time around we wanted to do a round trip with some friends on our day off. We managed to go to 2 shops only, but both had sales on, and we ended up drinking coffee and talking for hours which was an equally good way to spend the afternoon.
What did I get? A cute little scarf print Zara skirt (1000 Ft/ £3) and a beaded grey dress (1350 Ft/ £4). The grey dress was handmade and is 100% silk according to the tag inside. It’s about 3 sizes bigger, but I know what a pain sewing beads on a garment is, so I decided to buy it anyway. I’m planning to make a skirt out of it very similar to the other Zara find one day…

And again, sorry about the lack of ironing, you must have guessed that we are not close friends. Me and the Iron. 🙂