New lease of life

Just after Christmas I set out to alter an old jumper that I no longer wore. I wanted to shorten the arms, lengthen the body and remove the ribbing from the neck. So here it is all finished. no more throttling neck-line, no more sleeves getting in the way, and no more gaping bits between jumper and trousers! And all a lot quicker than starting from scratch - the hardest part was unpicking the old seams, after that everything went easily.

Unseasonal Sewing

I started this renovation project - turning an old pair of trousers into a skirt - back in October,when it might have been warm enough to wear it. I got through all the tricky bits of sewing, adding extra panels down the side seams to make it wide enough, quite quickly then ran up against tracking down material for the inside waistband. After that I really just needed to get the hem turned and sewn, which I felt a bit inclined to leave - possibly even till Spring! I decided it was a better idea though to get it finished, even if it's too thin to wear right now. This way it's ready and waiting come warmer weather.

Despite the fiddling of having to add extra panels, I'm really pleased with how this has turned out. it certainly looks better than the scruffy trousers.

Old Trousers = New skirt

So, I had a pair of old linen trousers, way past their best and going in holes. Most of the material was still ok though so I thought I'd chop off the worn bits and make a skirt......but...it wasn't that easy.











Looking more closely, I realised the outside had faded, while the inside had stayed a darker indigo - it's most easily seen in this pic where I've removed a pocket. So instead of a fairly easy chopping up and sew together again, I ended up almost starting from scratch.

I decided to use the bottom of the legs with the material reversed but it wasn't quite wide enough so I added a strip of material down each side seam and widening it at the bottom to make a little 'flip' at the hem -  I'm hoping this will look like a feature rather than a fix.

The material for the pockets came from chopping off the old pockets










and after a test try-on, I decided to add some darts both back and front, although it's still baggy enough to pull on without needing a zip. I haven't quite sorted the waistband yet - I need some more material from somewhere - but I'm going to use the old tie from the trousers to gather and fasten it.






So far I think it looks ok and I'm extremely happy to have found a use for the material.

An emergency project - clutch bag large enough to carry shoes!

 It was Teen's Prom this week and we thought everything was organised - the frock... the bag.... the shoe... a spare pair of flats for tired feet ...  that wouldn't fit in the clutch bag! And she discovered this the night before!


I wasn't in the mood to spend all day chasing round town for a bag that we  might not find, so rummaged through the material stash and discovered this nice black brocade from an old skirt belonging to my elder daughter and some stiffer suiting material to line it.

 It was a little flimsy so I lined all sections with heavy interfacing - and the flap with a piece of plastic! Pelmet stiffener might have been better but I was working with what I had.

 The bottom was made long and wide enough to take the shoes  - and a camera, phone and make-up. Then pleated onto a narrower band.

I didn't actually get as far as putting a fastener on because I ran out of time - finishing the hand sewing just at the last minute!

Not a useful day's sewing

  With a day of peace and quiet stretching ahead of me, when no one else would be demanding to use the dining table, I decided to get back to making clothes.
The cunning plan was to take an old stretchy top and recreate it out of an old thin cotton skirt.

Things started fine - drawing round the top and cutting out a pattern.
When I fastened the sides and shoulders together and tried it on, I discovered a problem. Perhaps obviously the cotton material wasn't stretchy so the new top appeared tighter than the old one but more importantly I seem to have cut it a lot shorter!
I'm now trying to think of a clever way to rescue it - add a contrasting hem, maybe?

Finished - almost

Ta dah! My crochet waistcoat re-working is almost done. There's still a million and one ends to fasten off but the actual crochet and joining up are finished.

before...

If you carefully compare with the original  and the half-way stage you can see where one ends and the other begins.

Crochet waistcoat -

The re-make of an old crochet top is coming along. I'm now at the stage of checking I have enough circles (not yet) and deciding which goes where.




Previous posts  about this project

Not Throwing This Away

 Unpicking

Step 1 - unpicking

Really this speaks for itself - the first step to re-making this crocheted top is to take it apart!

I've opened the side seams as currently the garment is FAR too small for me and opened the front as I intend to turn it into a waistcoat.

Next step will be to make the neck wider and remove most of the sleeve sections. Then comes the difficult part - finding more yarn for extra patches and working out where to add the new ones, particularly if they aren't the same colours.  

Watch this space for progress reports!!


Previous post on this project
Not Throwing This Away

Not throwing this away!

I made this crochet top for my younger daughter a few years ago and she's now grown out of it. It was the first complete crocheted garment I'd made and took an absolute age to finish. 

There's no way I'm sending this to the charity shop!

What I intend to do is take it slightly apart - I've already taken the neckband off - and re-assemble as a waistcoat for myself. I'm going to need to make more medallions so I'm hoping there's enough left over yarn somewhere around or something that will match.

Autumn makes #1 - New Hat

Don't think I knocked this up after posting about Autumn plans - it's actually a re-make of my daughter's hat. It's no longer her style of thing and the ribbing was cracked, but it seemed such a pity to throw it away.

I didn't have any of the original red wool for the ribbing so it's been re-done in blue - and slightly larger to fit my head!
Seeing it on, daughter actually said "It doesn't look too bad" - high praise!

another renovation

Yet another of my daughter's jumpers that she no longer likes!
It's not really been worn much and I quite like the big snowflake pattern so decided to make it over rather than send it to the charity shop.

It's a very snug fit but the main problem was its length. There was some left over yarn - a 100g ball of the red and some bits of white - not enough for a plain add on section but I wanted to leave the pocket patterns in instead of having to re-knit most of the front.

I unpicked the pockets and swiss darned the gap, undid the whole ribbed section, picked up there and knitted down to the bottom.
I've left the sleeves alone for now - they're tight and only three quarter length on me but it seems a lot of fuss to change them. As it's knitted in Aran weight pure wool, it's rather warm to wear it now, so I'll see how I feel about the sleeves in Autumn.

new from old

The changes to this old jumper are finished at last. The sleeves shortened and body lengthened with stripes from oddments of wool left over from other projects.

make-over ; trousers into cushions

I have a pair of daughter's old trousers in purple velvety material with beading, sequins and embroidery. they are now far too small, but the material is largely unworn. I'm hoping to turn them into cushions for her den.