Before and after: A floral tank

I was looking around the charity shops in Leicester for some items to refashion and in one shop every single item of clothing was 1.99. (Pounds this is, I must be really dumb but I can’t find the pound sign on my new laptop keyboard, so with every number from now on, just assume I mean pounds.) This was a real bargain because in most charity shops in my area the dresses tend to cost up to 6.00.











The top was a size 16 but I chose it because I really liked the print and I thought I could do something with it.
To refashion it, I unpicked all of the shirring which you can see the result of to your left.

I then unpicked the sides and the sleeves and folded it. My tank pattern from Sew You Home Stretch (where else?) was put on the fold of the front and then the back of the top. The tank was sewn together as normal.

  

I’m not sure if just cutting pieces out of an existing garment is proper refashioning but oh well. I do love this tank and have worn it loads already because it looks so great with jeans and a corduroy blazer. It should be okay to wear for sixth form as well which is another plus.
By the way, the place where these photos were taken was where some of Les Mis was filmed! It’s really cool to know that Helena Bonham Carter stood on the same stone floor as I did. Or is that just me?



Anyway, thanks so much for reading!
Lauren x

The Coffee Date Dress

This dress was inspired by the Coffee Date Dress sewalong hosted by Project Sewn.
The pattern is multisized, but I used the size used for the original garment from the designer The Selfish Seamstress.













This was the original design, and as you can see, I added a few things and omitted the ruffle, as I am not a very ruffley person at this period of my life. 

I only had 1 metre of lace so I had to think carefully about how I was going to use it, but I knew that I wanted to use it somehow. It ended up being on the bodice and the hem.
To add it to the hem I extended the pattern pieces by 8 inches and cut out 1 of each fabric for the 3 pieces.This was then sewn right sides together to the hem and then turned over to the wrong side of the dress. The new hem was then gathered to fit the new hem. I’m hoping that made a little sense?
The peter pan collar was a last minute decision as I decided that you can’t have two lace covered bits and one uncovered bit. Oh I am not having that. So the peter pan collar evened things out. It does also look pretty, and makes the dress a bit more interesting which are slightly more sane reasons for adding it on…

And the zip was a success! Yay! It was handpicked as usual, as I feel that I have slightly more control over what’s going on. I think the only alteration I made was to add an inch or so to the back bodice and skirt pieces, to make sure that there was enough room for a zip.











And that’s everything I think! Thank you so much for reading onwards, in spite of brief insane moments. As with all of my dresses, now I need to make up an event of some sort so I can wear it out! I get my exam results tomorrow so fingers crossed that this will be my celebration dress! Ah, so many exclamation marks.
Bye! Lauren x

Heart applique t-shirt

This top started as one thing and ended as something totally different, mostly because I’m a bit of an idiot, but actually I quite like what it evolved into so all is good.
I seem to be having a knit faze I’m afraid and I’ve still got one to blog! There are some wovens on the way though.
The pattern (as are most of my knit patterns) is from the Sew U Home Stitch book by Wendy Mullin. For this top, I used the basic T-Shirt pattern. I did cut off quite a few inches though, making this top more of a crop top.


The original plan was to have a lace front and sleeves and a plain back as I was using the leftover lace from my prom dress and I cut out the front pattern piece, realising that the piece was upside down so the fold line was on the other side of the pattern piece meaning that I had cut out 2 halves of a front. Stupid Lauren. So, in the end what I decided to do was to applique a heart onto the front and add lace sleeves to give the top some interest.
It doesn’t matter that the heart is pretty subtle, in fact I quite like it when you look closer you see something that you didn’t think was there before.
FYI, the box in my hand is my first ever take away pizza which was purchased in france. However it wasn’t a pizza as it didn’t have a tomato base. Instead it had a white sauce? and ham and cheese and onion on top. It was scrummy.







I french seamed the sleeves so the raw seam didn’t show through the lace, and zigzagged appliqued on the heart.
Even though this top is pretty simple, it made me feel super confidant whilst wearing it around the streets of France and I think that is all you can ask of a garment.







That’s everything for now I think!
Thanks for reading,
Lauren x

Concert Dress

The dress code for our symphony orchestra concerts was black. We also had to cover our shoulders and knees as we performed in Italian Duomos (Cathedrals) which you need to be fairly covered up in. You may notice that this dress fulfils only one out of the 3 requirements, being black, but neither being knee length or covering my shoulders.
Once upon a time it covered my knees, and then the fabric shrunk. The empire line used to be at my natural waistline… This is entirely my fault because I didn’t bother to pre wash the cotton jersey that this dress is made up of.
The other requirement ( the sleeves) is missing because I had 2 metres of the stuff and I could get in a sleeveless dress and a t-shirt or a dress with sleeves. I decided that the obvious choice to go for was choice numero a. (Just realised that the letter a isn’t a number, but we’ll just skate over that issue… Oh and I’ll also point out that when I made the dress weeks advance of going to Italy I was not informed that we had to cover our shoulders. So in the end I just had to wear a black cardi on top which would have been fine if it was not 35 degrees and playing clarinet in a concert, which when you put some effort into it is surprisingly sweaty work. (Too much information?)




Here is a really badly photographed line drawing of the pattern I used, taken from the book called Sew U Home Stretch by Wendy Mullin. What the book does is give you a basic pattern and then shows you ways to adapt it to make completely different garments which is really useful. E.g. This skirt was gathered but the pattern only came with a fitted skirt, so what you do is cut the skirt into 3 lengthways and spread it out and now you have enough to gather. It’s a brilliant book with loads of really useful information.

It is actually a really comfy staple piece which works well with a statement necklace (as demonstrated to your left). It would also work well with shoes (as is not demonstrated to your left as I seem to have forgotten that aspect of my attire).
I would like to make another in an interesting print sometime.







Well, I think that’s just about all for now so thanks so much for reading!
Lauren x

Floral Wrap Skirt

I found 2 pieces of floral cotton at the bottom of one of my fabric piles the other week and realised that it was two cut out pieces for a wrap skirt, so all I needed to do was sew them together, hem it and attach poppers in relevant places. Oh and pop on a waistband.














To the left is me proving that it is in fact a wrap skirt, which provides plenty of coverage in windy conditions.

And here I’ve really badly photoshopped in some arrows to show you where I put the poppers for maximum security.

















And here is a lovely photo to leave you with of me enjoying a nutella and marshmallow pancake. Oh it was so good.








As always, thanks very much for reading!
Lauren x