Odds and Ends - The Three Rs

While I've not been sewing any new makes, I did decide to increase my wardrobe numbers. There have been garments kept in my wardrobe through recent purges that I was still not wearing for various reasons. Every now and then, I would complete repairs on these unworn items; therefore, I've been mending and making alterations to garments in my closet instead of straight-out replacing or discarding them. So, new-to-me clothes!

Repair

Reinforced and repaired back seam on this skirt that split over the holidays when I leaned down to pick up something. (See recent post on weight gain.) It's fixed, but I still have to lose a few pounds to be sure it doesn't happen again.

Used fusible interfacing to mend torn areas on some favorite items and to reinforce seams and pivot points on older garments.

Refashion

Altered the unflattering neckline on my recent Simplicity 8529 from a too-large cowl to a wide jewel neck.

Removed, reshaped (by streamlining the shape), and replaced the straps (moved them closer to center front) on this Butterick 6424 top. Unfortunately, it did not work without underarm gaping, but I will try again later after the frustrated feelings fade.

A plaid flannel dress, McCall's 6885, became sleeveless after I finally removed the always-have-been-too-tight sleeves and bound the armhole edges. This top also received snaps placed between the gaping buttons over my currently more ample bust. Alas, it's still a little tight.

Replace

Replaced inadequate (too short) elastic in two knit skirt waistbands. I've now been wearing them more often since they're no longer uncomfortable when I'm sitting.

Swapped new fold-over elastic for old trim on some still-wearable knit tank tops. This is still in progress.

At the same time, the other thing I've been doing is deciding which handmade items are actually worthy of my personalized labels and the time it takes to stitch them in by hand. About half of the ones above got them, the others are in time-out to be reevaluated later.

A Small Repair To My Reputation

This was a little project I did a few weeks ago. I had been wearing this dress all summer even though it was scandalously short, especially for someone who spends a lot of her days bending over and crouching to retrieve documents on low shelves.

Some time ago I had purchased a 1/2 yard of a coordinating Calla Green Weavers cloth for $2.25 to add a tier to the bottom of the skirt. I will not tell you how long it took before I finally sewed it on or the very short amount of time it took in order to do it. However, I will show you how cute it looks!


New Look 6939

This dress was originally made to be little less than 34" long, it is now comfortably worn at 36.5" by adding a 6" strip of fabric and topstitching the join. So much more comfortable. And so much more decent!

Suede Patch Cardigan - Oh shucks, darn it!

It may have taken me months to do this, but I am very happy with the belated results. Even more months earlier I had discovered a hole in the sleeve of my favorite black cardigan and I put it aside to mend it one day. Before I was ready to do that I put it on one more time and while I blogged my heart a way the little hole became a huge awkward mess. I didn't want to throw it away so I started to think fabric patches but didn't really know how to do that. So the cardigan just waited...and waited.

Luckily, a few weeks ago, I read about someone darning socks on their blog and thought perhaps I could use that to at least tighten up the hole which I could then cover up. I searched around until I found two tutorials that I thought explained the technique well and set down to fix up my sweater. This one, explains a more intricate method very well, but I found this video tutorial* the most helpful, because I could actually see it step-by-step.

I didn't have a darning egg/mushroom so I just used a rolled-up magazine under the hole and though a bit awkward, it worked fine.

This is the corrected side.
(Enlarge to see blurry detail.)

Note: Very important, remember to darn from the wrong side, once you are done the opposite side is the one that will look much better than the "working" side. I did it wrong, but luckily for me, it didn't matter because I was going to cover the hole with a black patch, but if you are darning socks you want to be sure to do it correctly.

Embroidery needle and red floss.

I decided on using this black faux suede that I inherited from my mom's old fabric stash. I also had burgundy and camel to choose from but decided to go with the matching fabric color.

However, I then realized I had no black embroidery floss so I ended up going with bright red instead! This is what the inside of the good arm looks like. I used a backstitch which allowed the inside to look quite cool too.

To sew on this patch, I used an old pleather wallet** underneath to keep from stitching both sides of the sleeve together.



*The video tutorial found on Molly Knits Sweaters was created by greenfibres.com.

** Ooh, a step up from the rolled-up magazine, see?