Inspiration Dogstar - summer refashion

I mentioned a few months ago how much I love the style of Brissie design house Dogstar, and that I would be doing more Dogstar inspired refashions in the future, but haven't.  Well I have, I just haven't blogged about them.  But this past weekend I worked on two items inspired by Dogstars summer collection including their Fragmented summer pants.  I would include a photo here of the combo that inspired this refashion, but I'm really not sure about the legalities of sharing advertising photos on this little blog, so you'll just have to check out their awesome clothes yourself on their website www.dogstar.com.au or like them on Facebook ;-)

Aside from being inspired by Dogstar, this post also includes my 3rd maxi skirt refashion in as many weeks.

In yet another stunning before photo, I am wearing the Maxi skirt that will become trousers, and 2 tops - I hadn't yet decided which one I would be refashioning.

I started with the skirt first.  Another cheap Valley Girl item.

First up, I had to decide how far up I was going to cut up to in the front and the back of the skirt to create the two legs.  Now many of you will be aware that trousers are not simply skirts cut up the middle, so when doing this project you really need to leave a low 'drop' in the crouch to allow enough room for it to work.  I marked the point I was going to cut up to with chalk first and hoped for the best.

So after chopping the front and rear, the skirt now looked like this.

Before sewing the legs up, I chopped some fabric off the length as I wanted these pants to sit above the ankle.

Then I pinned the new seams together.

And sewed my skirt into pants.

Only problem now is they looked like too short pyjama pants.  This was not the look I was going for.

So I took some width off each leg to create a more tapered look.  Now, I must admit this was a lot of faffing about, and it took me quite a few alterations to get the look I was trying for.  But I finally got them to a shape I was happy with, and moved onto the next item for this 'outfit' (you'll have to wait till the end of this post to see both finished items).

 By this stage I had decided to refashion the black drapey cardigan as it had more fabric to work with.  This top had belonged to my mum and was made of a lovely silk, but is actually a couple of sizes too small for me.  I discovered while trying it on that silk has no give at all, so being a few sizes to small for me I could barely move my arms in any direction.

My solution - chop the sleeves off, I don't need them at this time of year anyway.

This top was going to become a singlet top of some sort, so I popped it on the dress form to have a play with how to make that happen.  I quite like this asymmetrical style, which is in keeping with my Dogstar theme of the day.

To create the assymetrical look, I cut this much fabric from one side of the 'drapey' cardigan front...

And this much from the other.

Sewed up the raw edges.

Then I pinned it together like this, and sewed along the edge with all the pins, leaving the bottom part loose.

And ended up with this combo.

Remember how it looked before?

Much better I now I think.

Flower silk top: hand-me-down c/o mum $0, Valley Girl Maxi-Skirt/now trousers: old item from my wardrobe $0, FCUK Sandals: Ebay $28.00, Glasses: Beachside Bargains (Evans Head) $12.00, Handbag: old favourite, I've had this bag for nearly 10 years, Bracelets: from my collection.

Thanks for visiting my blog :-)