So put your hand up if you have trouble dedicating your precious sewing time to fixing or refashioning garments?

If you didn’t put your hand up, please let me know your secret.

The three projects featured in this blog post have been hanging up next to my sewing machine for about three months. I was trying to motivate myself my creating a visual reminder of the fact that they needed to be done. It was right next to my machine to make it easy for me to get to work on it. Instead I simply ignored these garments for months.

And, so, in the end, how did I finally find the motivation to tackle the joy of returning to old makes that weren’t quite working?

Truth is, I was three days away from leaving for vacation so I knew it would be impossible to finish a new garment in that time. It was only when the possibility of starting something new was removed from the equation that I could actually motivate myself to make some adjustments to older makes instead!

And, of course, when I actually did it, I was astounded at how easy and satisfying and not at all time-consuming it was! I got through fixing the following three projects in two nights only.

Which, when you think about it, is a great output for potentially putting three garments that weren’t being worn back into rotation.

So my plan is that next time I struggle to find the motivation to fix up older projects, I need to come back and read this blog post, to remind myself of the fact that refashioning my older makes does bring joy!

Re-fashioning things that aren’t working

So let’s start at the beginning.

Why did I feel the need to return to these garments and update them?

In the case of the Amy Jumpsuit and the Olya Shirt Dress (hacked to mash it up with the Kalle Shirt Dress) it was because, even though I liked the garments, I simply wasn’t wearing them in their original form. For each of them, there was a little something which made the original garment not perfect, but I definitely still liked them. The overriding issue was that I just wasn’t reaching for them when I put my hands into my admittedly overstuffed closet.

For the Amy Jumpsuit, I sewed it in June 2020. Despite being more than two years old, I have only worn it three times, all of which occurred in summer 2020, just after making it. It means that last year, I did not choose to reach for it a single time.

For the Olya/Kalle Shirt Dress, this was sewn in August 2020, so it’s also nearly two years old. And I have worn it a grand total of two times, both of which occurred in August 2020, shortly after its creation. Again, I didn’t reach for it at all the entirety of 2021.

By the way, I love tracking what I wear with Stylebook for things like this. If you had asked me, I would have guessed I didn’t wear these much, but definitely would not have guessed that I have merely worn them 2 and 3 times respectively. Who would have thought, statistics are more useful than gut feelings?

For the Taika Blouse Dress, a more recent make, it was simply because I didn’t like it and knew I would not wear it in its previous form.

What about you, what are the key reasons that would motivate you to try to update or refashion a me-made garment?

Refashioning the Olya/Kalle Shirt Dress

So let’s start with the easiest refashion. The one which took a grand total of, hmm, maybe half an hour.

I liked this Olya Shirt Dress. The fabric is lovely. Light blue is my jam. Stripes are totally me. As a Shirt Dress, however, I found it a tad on the short side, so I had hoped I would wear it as an over shirt.

But I just haven’t.

Let’s face it, if it’s hot enough to allow for lightweight cotton and short sleeves, there are things in my wardrobe I would prefer to wear above layering with an overshirt.

So, I decided to chop this into a real shirt.

Which involved the highly technical step of cutting it to shirt length and re-hemming it.

That’s it.

And now I feel that I have a breezy and put-together shirt that I will actually wear.

So re-fashion #1 is a success. I feel that I have definitely added a much more wearable and durable garment into my wardrobe. For less than thirty minutes effort…

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Amy Jumpsuit refashioned into culottes

For this Amy Jumpsuit, I found I wasn’t really wearing it because the square neck hack I had made somehow looked a little bit too “farming overalls”.

But there was still so much I liked about it. All the topstitching work. The fabric. And the legs of the Amy Jumpsuit are utterly fab.

So I knew I wanted to turn this jumpsuit into a pair of culottes or pants.

To do this, I cut the bottom half of the jumpsuit off 1.5cm above where I wanted the waist of my culottes to be. As I wanted to maintain the pocket details, this gave a clear guide to whereabout at the waist to cut.

I wasn’t in the mood to undo the back zipper so I actually left the zipper in but just cut through it. So these still close with a centre back zip. I used thread to create a new stopper for the zip. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The legs of the cullotes were obviously too big to stay up around my waist on their own, so I added darts at the back to fit the culottes to my waist.

Once I had created the outside of my culottes, I then chopped up my bodice to create a facing for the waistband my pants, which I interfaced.

Apart from this, the only other detail to create was a few extra belt loops.

I am super happy with this refashion. There is no reason that I shouldn’t want to wear these denim culottes for the next decade, and I’m really pleased that this fabulous denim doesn’t go to waste.

I also did one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done while sewing during this project.

At one point, while chopping up my bodice, I didn’t properly pay attention to what was underneath and I accidentally sliced entirely through my belt.

Yes, the belt which I wanted to keep as an essential feature of the re-fashion.

And I sliced clean through it!

Grrrrrr!

So the belt has been reattached together as best as possible. Don’t tell anyone!

Re-fashioning the Taika Blouse Dress

So I also decided to tackle again the Taika Blouse Dress, which was a horrible fit on me.

I took it in at the side seams, from the bust down to the waist by a whopping 3-4 inches in total.

Then, in order to address the fact that the bust cups are also HUGE on me, finishing a couple of inches below where my bust actually is, I sliced the dress open at the shoulder seam and raised the entire dress by 3cm, so that the bust was lifted up.

I also obviously cut off the sleeves, which, at the length I had hacked them too, ended up looking rather dowdy.

I feel that this is definitely an improvement from how it was, but I still don’t know how much I’m going to wear this dress.

My original idea had been to turn it into a skirt (and I may still do this in the future), but the reason I didn’t is because the one time I wore this dress, I must have leaned against something strange and scratchy because a big chunk of the fabric has actually been damaged. It looks as though someone has taken sandpaper to it.

When I noticed that, I realised that this garment probably does not have a long life in any event, so I didn’t want to put in the effort of turning it into a skirt. My plan is to see how it works out and whether the fabric holds up. If so, I might try to re-fashion this one again, as I do think a big ol’ maxi skirt is going to be a better addition to the wardrobe than this dress.

And, voila, a tale of three re-fashions!

Have you ever tried to re-gashion your makes that aren’t quite working? Did it work?