Sunday 18 July 2010

My reconstructed shirt

Wow I'm afraid of making clothes. Especially tops. Its ridiculous but I'm terrified. And its not unjustified too. Just before dh returned from Peru I attempted a black jersey knit top that failed so horribly i can't bring myself to open the plastic bag that I stuffed it and its sorry remains into. It will just continue to live in my material stash accusingly till it drives me out of my mind. (see? Irrational.). I'm not sure what I was thinking but the jersey knit was the thicker "I should be shorts" type and not the "I'll drape beautifully and cover you sewing mistakes" type. The joys of buying fabric on ebay are never more apparent than when a package arrives and it is nothing like you were hoping for.
To make myself feel better I found a tutorial for reconstructing a men's formal dress shirt into a pretty peasant top. In theory this would be better since it was mostly gathering and shapelessness anyway right?
So with the help of this tutorial, and a visit the a Help the Aged charity store, I give you my peasant top.



I replaced the buttons with blue ones and edged the sleeves in a patterned cotton. Its not a great fit and still a bit starchy and not nearly as soft and flowy as I imagined but it gave me hope for my clothes making future.

And hope has led me to follow some great web advice and cut out a top using one I already love that fits perfectly. Surprisingly (for me!) this simple idea worked and I know have a great black top that has proven to me that I can do this! Will get dh to take pics tomorrow so I can prove to the anonymous internet that I can do it too! Now if I can only stop myself from buying vast amounts of fabric for all these clothes that teem in my imagination...

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