Refashioned crop top...

Next up is a refashioned cropped top into a dress. 

I loved this top, but unfortunately I am rather blessed in the bra department, so it kind of hung off of me and made me look larger than I am. I like a good fitter top half! 

I had some spare black fabric that I gathered with elastic. I then used a zig zag stitch to sew it onto the top. 

The zig zag stitch allows for a certain amount of elasticity to the waist of the dress. 

This was still a fairly simple refashion for me. As I said in my last post, I do love a quick project :) 

Until next time :) 

I did it!

Well, you all know I've been at uni for what seems like forever, but I finally graduated this week!

Best of all, my husbands graduation was on the same day, so we were able to get some photos of us both in our gowns which was lovely.

Our graduation was on Plymouth Hoe, so of course we had to get Smeatons Tower in our pics!

It feels awesome so have finally finished uni, it's been the hardest thing I've ever done.

Oh, yes that is the dress I refashioned a few posts back :) I got some compliments which was nice!

Speak soon!

Graduation dress...

I've been a busy bee lately! I have made countless items of ACTUAL WEARABLE CLOTHES! Not just dresses either, everyday skirts and blouses too. I've also done a lot of re-fashions. Here is one I bought this week for £1...

This far too long black and red polka dot dress! Miraculously, not a bad fit :) But the poor unloved dress had hundreds of moth holes and tiny little tears. It also had some lovely shoulder pads haha! I didn't take pics of the moth holes because there were so many of them, I would still be there fixing them now!

Anyway, as the fit was fine, I simply cut the bottom of the dress into a slightly dipped hem (to help cover my ginormous bum!!), fixed the holes and tears, and also stitched up the button holes. As a lady with a larger top half, button down dresses and tops tend to gape and show everything off haha!

Oh, and it has pockets!!

Look how flowy it is!!

I had kind of forgotten that my graduation is next week, so how lucky was it to come across this dress? I actually saw it as I was on my way out of the shop! And for £1?! I will be the cheapest dressed person there, and I won't even care because I made it look awesome :D

Until next time :) 

Charity shop finds...

I know I know...I've been lazy with the blog again. *slap on the wrists for me*

BUT...I have been very busy.

I got married :) 

So far it has been the best 5 months of my life. I love being married. In all honesty, not much changes, but in another way, everything changes. In a good way :)

I've also now finished my degree in Architecture!! So I've been busy for good reasons.


Anyway, no crafty bits to show you...YET! So here are some charity shop finds.

Black and white floral skirt. £1.

I don't tend to wear skirts at all, but I am always drawn to them. This one is a light cotton fabric, and I quite like the length - it falls just below my knees. I'm also tempted to make this into one of those high-low, dipped hem-type skirts that are popular now. I'm a fan of anything that makes sure it covers my bottom!

A nautical looking jacket. £1.

Yes this jacket is a few sizes too big. But I love it anyway. It is a light jersey fabric - perfect for summer. I like these sorts of jackets because they look posh, but they are cool and comfy to wear even as it gets hot.

Look at that pinstripe sleeve turn-up!

I also love the pinstripe bias-binding on the inside of the jacket. 

No one will see it but me, but it's so cute!

That's all for now guys. Now that I have some free time, I do plan on blogging more, I may just have to save up all of my interesting posts and then blog them all at once. I don't know. we shall see :)

Granny dress refashion...

Hello all!

I picked up a rather large granny dress in the summer with the intentions of making it fit me. I really liked the pattern and the light fabric. (Plus, it was only £1!)

(It was a size 20 and someone had hand-sewn up the buttons for modesty. How sweet!)

I usually take ages to plan what I'm going to do with a refashion. But this time I decided to just dive in and chop bits off!

(I chopped off about 10 inches from the bottom)

(I took the sides in and here's what I was left with.)

Now normally, I would have stopped there. But in all honesty, am I really going to wear a summer dress in the freezing cold, windy Plymouth winter? No. Also, I just didn't love it. I'm trying to make things i'm actually going to wear, not things to live at the back of the wardrobe waiting for good weather, or waiting until I have the confidence to wear. So I carried on chopping.

Here's what I finished with....

(A cute little blouse!)

I'm quite pleased with this. I left the sleeves as long as this because it's cold, and I think it's a more mature length. I unpicked the hand-stitching down the buttons so that it would open up again. This allowed me to take the sides in a bit more to make it more fitted. You can't see it too well, but where the buttons finish, is where the bottom of the dress started to fan out. It now forms a little bit of a peplum, which is quite flattering on my hips.

I'll be trying to make some handmade Christmas gifts over the next few weeks. I won't be blogging about them until after Christmas though, some of my readers are some of the people who will be receiving those gifts!! 

I'll try and update soon!!

Halloween refashion!

Good afternoon everyone!

(That would have said good morning had I not been so fragile earlier today. Great night out :) )

Ok, so as you probably know, I study architecture. It pretty much takes up all of my time. So when I was invited out with the other half, one of his friends and his girlfriend for halloween, I was sure it was just going to be a calm evening. No dress up involved. Then I found out I had a few days off and we could actually have a proper night out!!

I only found this out on Wednesday. Halloween was Thursday. I haven't gone out for halloween in years, and I didn't have an outfit!

Enter...this 4 sizes too big, flappy sleeves, ankle length red little number that I bought for 50p and one of our charity shops! (it was 2 for £1 day, so I got another new top as well :D )

(I forgot to take a photo of me wearing this, sorry!)

So the dress was a lovely heavy jersey fabric, and barely even needed proper hemming to be perfectly honest. All I did was cut off about 35cm from the bottom and cut off the flappy sleeves - luckily the way it was sewn in meant that if I pulled the sleeve tight enough when I was cutting it, it pulled all the little loose threads out too, so it was literally just a case of cutting them off! Oh, I did tighten the sides of the sleeve a bit when I added darts to the side. Nothing wrong with them, I just didn't want people to see the sides of my bra. The best thing about this project is it took less than half an hour!

Here's what I ended up with...

(Nice eh? Not bad for a simple refashion)

And just because it was for a halloween outfit, here it is with me all done up...

Oooh, also...look at all the extra fabric I've got! I don't know what to do with it really, red isn't something that's normally in my colour palette. Any ideas?

It's ok though, we were all safe that night. There was a doctor present at all times :)