Orange Dress from Ikea Curtain

Hello, HoffiCoffi here.

I found these items in two charity shops.  The shirt is a man's 100 percent cotton shirt from 'Animal' and the curtain is 100 percent polyester and from 'Ikea'.

I decided I wanted to make a party dress with a fitted strapless bodice.  The back of the shirt was enough for the centre front of the bodice and, as the bodice I was making had princess seams, the rest of the bodice pieces were easy to fit onto the shirt front and sleeves.

The finished dress front.

The finished dress back. 

I had initially intended to use the original shirt collar for the bodice band, but upon inspection it was quite worn and wasn't quite long enough to be caught in the side seam.

Luckily I had enough leftover fabric and was even able to line it up so that the stripes went along uniformly.

This is the dress inside out to show you the lining.  I managed to avoid hemming the lining by using the selvage edge on the bottom... luckily my calculations as to length worked out for me this time!

The before and after shot.  There is a bit more information on my blog, but it is mainly ramblings about wrestling with polyester! 

What I did with offcuts from a duvet dress

Hello, HoffiCoffi here!

After I had completed my princess duvet dress I made in January I had some leftover fabric that was proving a bit tricky to use, because of a silly cutting mistake on my part.  If you recall...

I have made some quilt blocks with some of the leftover fabric.  Quilt blocks are great because you can fussy cut the fabric and the original design doesn't have to show up unless you want it to.  I also wanted to try something a little different though and I came up with the idea of making a bird brooch.

It is a mixture of applique using pieces of the leftover fabric together with some hand embroidery for the facial features and feet.  

Here is a picture of the finished dress.  

Here you can hopefully see what pieces I used from the duvet pattern for the bird - remember, I didn't cut up the dress to make the brooch!  I used the fabric I had leftover after making the dress.  It was fun and I definitely ended up with a unique bird brooch!

HoffiCoffi

Princess Duvet Cover Dress

HoffiCoffi here.  I have been duvet dress making again!  This time it was a princess single duvet cover, which had princesses on the front and a floral design at the back.

I started by cutting off the fastenings on the bottom of the duvet.

I then cut about 22 inches off the bottom of the duvet for the skirt.  My intention was just to gather the top of this (with a break in the side seam for a zip), and to attach it to the bodice with the princesses all over the front of the dress and flowers on the back... but more on this in a moment.

I turned my attention to the bodice.

As I hope you can see I spent some time centering one of the princesses onto the bodice front.  I decided to go for snow white as I liked the yellow contrasting with the main pink of the dress.

At the back I also spent time matching up the flowers either side of the centre back.

Feeling pleased with the pattern placement I went back to the skirt panel I had cut out earlier and...

Ahhh, I don't think I wanted to cut it like that!!!!

Due to a massive oversight on my part I had not checked that the skirt panel included a complete panel of princesses.  I was left with a dilemma - have incomplete princesses on the skirt or come up with something else.

Luckily, and I do mean luckily, I had enough material left over from the back of duvet to make a gathered skirt out of just the floral motif.  So that is what I did. 

I fully lined the dress with offcuts of lining material from other projects, and the dress fastens with a side zip that I harvested from a dress I had previously refashioned into a skirt.

But my lesson has been learned - not just measure twice cut once but look twice cut once! :)

HoffiCoffi

Shirt to Shorts

Hello, HoffiCoffi here.  As I am currently rushing to finish sewing Christmas presents I thought I would show you a refashion I did in the summer for the Refashioners 2015 challenge.  Hope you like it. :)

I purchased this shirt at a charity shop ages ago and it has been languishing in my clothes pile ever since.  It's a soft woven plaid fabric and it seemed perfect to make into a pair of sleeping shorts. 

This took a bit of fabric juggling.  I could obviously use the front and back of the shirt for the shorts front and back, but I needed a bit more fabric for the inside leg and, sadly, the hip!

Here is one of the pieces to show you.  You may be able to see on the left of the picture I have had to add a bit more fabric to the outside hip area - I took this from the original shirt sleeve.  The extra fabric for the inside leg was harvested from the top of the shirt front.  

As there was a button placket already it seemed like a good idea to have a button down front.  This did involve a bit of fabric manipulation though; as if I had sewn the front inside leg and just stopped the button placket would not be lying flat.  Luckily the extra fabric I had used at the inside leg came over the button placket.  I sewed up to this extra fabric and hand turned the raw edge.

Hopefully you can see in the picture above that the button placket is lying flat below the extra fabric.

As you can imagine I didn't have much fabric left for a waistband.  I hit on the idea of using a cuff as the front fastening on the waistband, so I cut off what was left of the sleeve including a seam allowance...

..and cut the back yoke of the shirt into two strips to attach to the cuff.

You can see here the end of the cuff continuing on from the strip of fabric cut from the yoke.

Here is another photo from the front.  It was quite a windy old day which made photography a bit tricky.

The back of the shorts.

They are really comfy to wear and what I loved about sewing these was that the more I concentrated on the fabric, the more colours I could see woven into the cloth. They have been in constant rotation in my wardrobe since they were made!

HoffiCoffi

Hello, I'm HoffiCoffi

Hello, this is my first time posting at the Refashion Co-op.  I have been blogging since 2010 and I live by the sea in Wales.  The name HoffiCoffi comes from the Welsh language phrase 'Rydw i'n hoffi coffi.'  Which simply means 'I like coffee.'  It may have been too long a title if I had included chocolate... cakes.... biscuits!

Anyway, I digress.  Today it is blowing a gale here in Wales so I wanted to show you something I made last summer - really just to cheer me up in this weather.

It is a rainbow dress made out of this duvet cover I purchased in a charity shop for £1.50.

I was convinced this duvet cover is a print of the opening sequence of one of my favourite childhood television shows, Rainbow, but a quick search on YouTube proved me wrong.  It is uncannily similar though.  

The front section contains the rainbow, whereas the back of duvet cover is all clouds and sky.

It did leave me with a dilemma though, I loved the rainbows, I loved the trees, but they couldn't all fit into a dress.  

Eventually, I opted for the rainbows and cut the fabric just above the tree line.  I had to do a very narrow hem to keep the length that I wanted.  The bodice of the dress is the Colette Peony and as you can see I messed up my fba a bit as there is pulling there. I have done tons of alterations with this bodice before so I'm not sure what went wrong!  The skirt is just the front and back section of the original duvet cover.

The back of the dress is made up entirely of the back of the duvet as the 'sky' was a little lighter on the back section.  I like how all the detail is in the front and how the back gives someone walking behind me a false sense of security that the person in front of them is not unhinged!!!

I have teamed the dress with a petticoat I made previously, together with the shoes I wore to my wedding eleven years ago.

I love my dress, and whilst wearing it outside it seemed to want to join its friends in the sky! 

Well that has cheered me up!  Thank you.

http://hofficoffi.blogspot.co.uk/