Friday 28 August 2015

VINTAGE

Depending on when you were born, 'vintage' can mean something very different from person to person.  I've heard reference to 'vintage 90's' recently, while another person I spoke to this week was referencing the 1950s as vintage.... For me 'vintage' generally refers to anything pre-1980s, however, I have developed a bit of a soft spot for some 1980's fashion thanks to watching an obscure Bananarama video on Youtube a while back.


Hence me jumping on this 'vintage' 1980s skirt when I saw it for $2.50 a little while back.


However, this weeks dress alteration project is a cosy winter vintage frock that I suspect is from the 1970s.


How could I pass this up?  It's the winter colour I was hankering for a few months back.



Alright, my 10 year old had a point when she told me it looked like a nightie, and asked if I was wearing it to bed the night we took these before photos

Despite this, my plan was not to 'refashion' the dress. I loved it just the way it was, I just wanted to alter it so that it fit me better.



So I started by unpicking the sleeves.



Then I marked and pinned the sides before creating new side seams...



...by sewing along the chalk lines.



Once I had done this I chopped off the excess fabric.

I also took a little fabric from the seams that ran down the middle at the front and back of the dress - these are the offcuts sitting on the ground below the dress.



I also wanted the shoulder seams to sit correctly, so after taking the sides in, I cut these bits of fabric from the arm holes...



...before reattaching the sleeves.



After which I took in the sleeves.



You can see here that I tried a few times before getting the sleeves a width I was happy with.



And thats how simple it was to alter this frumpy vintage frock.



I love the matching belt and stripe detail on this dress.



Alas, with spring on our doorstep this dress will have to be put away until next winter.

Ohhh, look, before and after shoe/dress combo exactly the same.

Dress: thrifted $8, Shoes: Dr Martens ebay (a couple of years ago).

Tuesday 18 August 2015

Lets not take this 'Fashion' thing too seriously...

I'm not sure 'fashion' is the right word for what I do with clothes, but whatever you want to call it, I figure why not have a bit of fun with it and not take it too seriously.  This certainly applies to this Karate pant refashion.



I see these all the time in opshops and wonder who would buy them... not me.  But when I saw a pile of 'give away' pants a my girls Karate 'dojo', I couldn't resist grabbing a pair - surely something could be done with these?



Not exactly flattering.  Especially when teamed with my clashing 'round the house on a cold day' jumper and scarf combo.



The obvious choice was to dye them.  I chose to tie dye them.  So I started this process by folding one side with an 'accordion' style fold.



Then I did a smaller 'accordion' fold to create a little folded 'stack'. 



Which I then squished between two bits of wood.



And tied it all together like this before repeating the process on the other side.
NB: Tying it up was a bit of a faff and required four hands.  I would recommend using rubber bands instead of string.



Then I mixed up some brown 'Rit' dye according to the packet instructions and plonked the bundle into the dye for half an hour.



I stuck a weight ontop of it to stop it from floating.  And when the half hour was up, I rinsed the bundle before popping it in the wash.



After the pants were washed and dried, I cut off about 35cm from the length and re hemmed them.



And after all that they ended up looking like this.



They are actually super comfy thanks to that weird drop crouch that Karate pants have.



These are certainly not everyones cup of tea (certainly not my husbands, who was not a fan of this look AT ALL).  Maybe my friends description of me looking 'very pyjama chic' on the day I wore this ensemble, was accurate.  So if 'pyjama chic' is the look you are aiming for, grab yourself some Karate pants ;-). 


 Karate pant refashion - lets ot take this 'fashion' thing to seriously...

Karate Pants: gifted, My trusty 'docs': gumtree $30, Black tunic and mustard tee: old wardrobe items; Green Scarf: $2 thrifted item which has been refashioned into a multi wear item - you can check out what I did to this scarf here