Craving Cranberry

While I tend to wear a bunch of black, I have a friend who is always in dark reds, burgundies, and so on.  Her example has inspired me to think more about wearing rich jewel tones: I recently thrifted a beautiful heavy jersey top in a cranberry color that I've been wearing all the time, enough so that I started scanning retail websites for similar things (since I feel a bit weird about wearing the same shirt to work 3 times a week).  Then I remembered I owned something else in a similar color that I hadn't worn in a while:

 I thrifted this dress a couple years ago but wore it only a few times because while the color was great, the loose pleating below the empire waist did nothing for me.  Also, the fabric is sort of heavy which gives nice drape but would pull down the already very low neckline.

I knew I wanted to make it more fitted, and perhaps make it into a top (it is way too cold to not wear pants here, and I've fallen out of wearing leggings). I started by cutting the bodice off, then taking in the "skirt tube" significantly.  Next I used some elastic seam tape to ruche (sp?) both sides (not quite on the sides, but maybe an inch or two forward from the side seams (to try for a slimming effect). 

If you haven't used this tape before, ruching just involves stretching the tape while you sew it onto the unstretched jersey (then the tape contracts, giving the ruching effect).  I also really like the tape for finishing cut jersey edges (it just wraps around the raw cut edge and you zig-zag it on).  Anyway, after sewing the ruched tube onto the bodice again, I got this:

I felt like there was just too much fabric around the hips (partially, going back to ruching below the awkward section caused by wearing pants with a zipper underneath looked unflattering to me), so I cut it off to get this:

I am pleased and I think I will wear this.  Also, if you were keeping track, I still have the piece of fabric I got from taking in the skirt tube and from cutting off the bottom 6-7 inches, so I may be able to make another red thing to wear!

Neon Stencil on Leather Backpack

I am supposed to be packing for a conference in Toronto, but since packing is boring, I made this instead:

Part of the point of refashioning for me is being able to spice up stuff I've gotten bored of (rather than getting new stuff). Recently, Kasey posted this chevron leather cuff bracelet made from a salvaged leather jacket. 

Her post reminded me of a boring thrifted leather backpack I had never worn, and of all the neon+neutral and neon-y tribal/Native American references I've been seeing in magazines and around the interwebs lately:

 

 I used painter's tape to make a design and a random white primer from the basement as a base coat (so the neon will be bright!). I sponged on the paint:

Once the white dried completely, I sponged on some neon acrylic I bought on Amazon. The pro of letting the white dry is that it didn't dilute the neon-ness, the con was that the tape didn't pull off a perfectly clean line.

As soon as the neon paint went on I removed the tape.  Pretty cool already (this shows the color accurately).

After the first layer dried, I repeated the process (being very careful pulling the painters tape off the first layer). You can't see this great in the photo, but the central bottom panel has an "ombre" effect from orange on the outside to yellow at the center.

I also salvaged some large studs from an old belt, painted them neon yellow, and used them to cover the holes on the top of the toe of a pair of leather flats (previously the toe ornament had been so large and floppy walking more than 5 minutes in the shoes was annoying).

Leather shoe surgery part 2: blingy flats!

Gaining confidence from my first shoe refashion last week, I took a new look at the underworn shoes in my closet.

The Raw Material: a pretty pair of thrifted leather flats with cute hardware.
Diagnosis: so tight in across the top of the foot and in the toe box that I never left the house in them :(
Revelatory Insight: it doesn't make sense to buy or own shoes that hurt my feet.
Enter: the serrated paring knife.

Plan of treatment: cut away parts of the shoe until I had either totally destroyed every shoe-like feature, or I had converted them into cute (and comfortable) flats a la fanciness like this:

Starting with the originally adorable (but unsustainably painful) shoe, I cut out the leather inside the little horseshoe.  I worked hard to make my cuts under the hardware, so they'd be as unnoticeable as possible.   They were very cute at this point, but after an hour of wear I had to admit they were still squeezing my toes too much.  ====> MORE CUTTING!

To remove the pinching toe box, I cut as close to the decorative trim as possible (controlling the paring knife was easier this time).  Since the entire interior sole of the shoe was really nicely finished, they look pretty legit (there was a white cardboard layer right under the leather, like with the men's shoes last time, but I just colored it black with a pen...you can see it as the second layer in).

On the feet:

I do wish I could have kept them with the toe box since the first alteration did help with the tightness across the top of the foot, but now they are actually wearable (and summery!), and I still like them fairly well, so I'll call myself satisfied.

Peeptoe Oxford Refashion

This is my first shoe refashion!

In the last few years, I've seen a lot of variations on men's leather shoes for women:

At the $1.49 a pound I found these really soft leather men's shoes in exactly my size.  They were so long that they a) looked weird with everything, b) were hard to walk in. In a moment of sheer curiosity, I took a serrated paring knife to them. 

I ended up cutting the top in line with the toe cap stitching (just carving right through the nose and sole of the shoe...check out the cardboard layer under the leather!), and tucking the insole under and gluing it:

 

They wouldn't pass as commercial shoes, since my finishing was pretty improvised, but they are really comfortable and great with bright nail polish. I wore them for 4 straight days after making them. This was a really interesting project for me since I got to investigate the construction of the shoe a bit.

French Connection potato sack to fitted blouse with half slip

I have a confession: even as a person who does the vast majority of her shopping second hand (aside from underwear, socks, shoes, and some workout items), I have a hard time resisting the lure of fancy brand names that sometimes materialize at thrift shops.  Probably this has something to do with advertising, and my hereditary "get-a-bargain" gene, but it is also caused by the fact that fancy brand name articles usually have at least one drool-worthy aspect to them that blinds me to the otherwise unsuitable nature of the garment.  Enter the following potato sack by French Connection:

The fabric is this soft basket weave cotton that felt really luxurious and light to me (also, I liked the shape of the neckline).   I paid a couple bucks for this probably 4 years ago, and have occasionally worn it with a belt to counteract the general waist-less effect.  There was still way too much fabric around the waistline though.  Here it is with a fitted pattern intended for jersey (pattern made out of some salvaged fabric!):

Basically, I cut the dress off at the narrowest part of the pattern waist, and then pinned the bodice according to the jersey pattern pretending the gathering around the neckline wasn't there (my idea was that the lack of fabric stretch would be compensated for by the extra volume in the neck gather).  After sewing the bodice and removing a tad more volume with a dart down the center back I had a short blouse. I had intended to reattach the original skirt part by gathering it into the new smaller waist, but when I pinned it this way it was way too puffy (like a donut around my hips). Instead, I attached the bottom of a slip dress that I hadn't been wearing often.

 

I've worn this a couple of times already with high-waisted skirts over the top and have been really pleased with the comfort of the top and how the attached slip allows the real skirt to move freely (also, not having to worry about a short blouse coming untucked from the waistband of the skirt is nice).