Fashioned from Fabric...

Probably about a year ago, I had a pair of jeans which had developed a hole so they could no longer be worn as jeans. I wanted to use the jeans to make a denim waistcoat. When I'd found a pattern to use, I cut, tacked and machine-stitched the pieces together... Only to find that I was a bit short on fabric! After discussing it with my mum, we decided to get some other fabric to make a "false-shirt" type top. Whilst I am happy with the result, it wasn't what I wanted it to end up as.



A little while before I started making the denim waistcoat/top, one of our green fitted bed-sheets got a bit thin to be used on a mattress, so I convinced my mum to let me keep the sheet to use as fabric for a dress I wanted to make.

I used some of my Top Model books to design a dress that could be made using the sheet. I decided to add some bottle-green lace fabric and a ribbon around the waistline. Of course there were some different versions, but these are two of the designs (unsure at this point if I wanted asymmetrical skirt).

 

After visiting a couple of local fabric shops and our nearest Hobbycraft store (at Fort Kinaird) without any luck finding green lace fabric, I was almost ready to give up and think of something else. Then on Saturday 9th March 2019, Borders Scrap Store had an open day! (- which is great because they are now only open Tuesday-Thursday which means I can't go.) This was a really good day as I managed to find two dress-making patterns I liked AND, right at the bottom of the box of scraps was  … wait for it … GREEN LACE FABRIC!!!!! (can you tell how ridiculously happy that made me?(!) So at last, I could start making the dress!

This was quite a long process and unfortunately I didn't photograph any of it. One of these days I'll learn just to photograph all of my projects, just in case. Anyway here is the finished article:

The original idea was to have the dress and waistcoat form an outfit (however, with the lack of denim and use of other fabric, this would no longer work.)

However, I now have two pairs of jeans which both have holes (in the same place as each other and as the first pair... don't know what I'm doing to my poor jeans.) So now I can go back to my original plan/design and have a completely denim waistcoat to go with my new dress.

I think I might use the pattern I used for the dress bodice so that the waistcoat is more fitted as per my original design. I'd also like to re-use one of the zips from the jeans but I guess I'll just see how I get on.

I hope to do a series of posts on "upcycling" projects that I do (next time with more photos of the stages/process!) Please leave a comment below if you'd be interested in this or if you have any questions about these projects...