Kasia skirt number two…

Blimy, are my hips really that big? Haha must be! And I should really use the iron more before I take photos. This is the Burdastyle Kasia skirt I started an age ago, made from some more of those curtains I found in a charity shop for £6. Remember I made Burdastyle’s Coffee Date Dress from the same fabric? That £6 is stretching far and I’ve got loads of the fabric left. Matching hat? :)
  
Don’t you love the buttons? All from stash, I decided to make two buttonholes instead of three – I’ll let you know if it gapes weirdly. I think stacked buttons might just be my new favourite thing. I had all my buttons out and was trying to find something that matched. Mum started looking too, and five minutes later she had come up with this combination. Go ma!
This is my second Kasia, but I don’t think I’ll make any more. I managed the waistband first time round (but I was so involved in getting it right, it didn’t actually fit and was too big), but this time I lost my mojo and botched it together. It’s an arse. Consider that a warning chaps!
Beccy

Thrifty man’s shirt refashion with a mini tutorial

I made this cute shirt-for-that-meeting-with-HR-I-have-next-week…
…from this big old man’s shirt…

Here’s how I did it!
First I removed the sleeves and unpicked the side seams, leaving the shoulder seams intact.

Then I put it inside-out on the dressform and pinned like crazy. I had to add bust darts to the side and front and back darts too to make it fit the form.

I also pinned the sides to make sure the darts were in the right position. I then sewed the darts in place and pressed them flat. This is the time to try on the shirt and check those darts – if they are wrong you’ll have to take the whole shirt apart to put them right!

When I was sure the darts were right I sewed up the side seams. I measured on myself, from shoulder to hem, how long I wanted the shirt to be and transferred these measurements to the shirt. Then I hacked off the bottom hem.

I knew I wanted the sleeves to hit my elbows and that I wanted to turn the cuffs back, so I measured from my shoulder to my elbow and cut the sleeve accordingly, following the line of the existing seam. I then pinned the sleeve to the shirt and used tailors chalk to mark the new armhole. Because I wanted puffed sleeves I gathered the top part of the sleeve and tacked it before pinning it to the shirt. I then pinned and sewed in the sleeves backwards. This meant that the split in the cuff would be at the front instead of at the back and allow easy movement (and maybe look cute?)

 

The cuffs were obviously too small to fasten the buttons at my elbow so I folded them back and pressed them before sewing them down following the line of the existing stitching on the cuff. You can’t quite see on the photo but the cuffs each had two buttonholes so Mr. Man could have the option of using cufflinks. I sewed the extra buttons from the bottom of the shirt onto the extra buttonholes to make it a design feature.
Now I have a shirt for that meeting I ought to try to look smart for (work attire usually consists of jeans and a jumper at this time of year – us ceramicy folk have to wear clothes we don’t mind getting mucky every five minutes)
Beccy