Bonjour!

I'm excited to be joining this community and just wanted to introduce myself. I’m an American in Paris (for a decade and counting) and a novice refashionista who has returned to sewing after a 22-year hiatus. I’m blogging about it all as Mommy en France over at Two little cabbages & cie.

Until Christmas 2010, the last time I had sewed was in my junior high school home economics class. I never managed to complete my class project, but I did pick up some sewing basics, which I promptly ignored for years. What brought me back to sewing? I think it’s pretty much refashioning/repurposing and the ethos behind it. With two children who seem to outgrow their clothes overnight, I was looking for ways to extend the life of their garments. And I dreamed of making creative costumes for them (my small stand against the commodification of dress up play and the Disney-ification of fairy tales).

So Santa left a sewing machine under the tree for me and I’ve been having a great time ever since. My best projects so far have been (re)making things for my daughter, of which my favorites have been:

A pair of too-short trousers made into a patchwork skirt

An adult floor-length, silk skirt transformed into a kid's skirt with matching stole (full story here)

I’m more nervous about tackling things for me, but I’m game to try. Part of the issue for me is that, after two children and several years in a demanding job, I’m just not the lithe young thing I used to be, far from it. About 35 lbs from it, in fact. Now I’m a US size 14/16 living in a very svelte, chic city. Oh, and I’m 5’10 with size 10 feet, which doesn’t help here either. Anyway, I’m so frustrated to have a closet full of currently unusable but really nice clothes from before or between having my children. I can't bear to give the clothes away, I can't fit in most of them and I definitely don’t want to go out and buy many more at my current size, even if I could find any that I liked. So this weekend I went closet shopping and picked out eight garments that I think I can refashion in some way so that they work for my current shape (full story here).

The first one is this men’s Liberty print shirt. I will be trying to take it in a little in the bust and arms, change the cuffs and generally make it more feminine. I’ll post back here as I progress.

A close up shot, so that you can see the details of the gorgeous fabric!