I have finally returned to my longest past time, sewing, in the form of dressmaking. I'm hoping that this means more frequent sewing-related blog posts to come your way! I will be blogging about sewing projects, sewing patterns and books, fabrics and alterations etc etc.
Today, though, I wanted to tell you all about one of my recent sewing projects, Upcycling a vintage shirt! I bought this shirt a few years ago at a Vintage Clothing Event in my first year of university. Now, because I'm a little bit on the stupid side, it didn't occur to me to take a photo of the shirt
before I worked my magic on it. So, instead, here's a photo of blonde teenage Ruth wearing the original shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
The photo on the right is the only example of me actually wearing the shirt before shoving it in the back of my wardrobe, waiting for inspiration to do something with it. It was just too big and oversized and that wasn't the vibe my tastes in fashion wanted to convey. And eventually, upon buying an upcyled shirt from
Dog & Bone Vintage three years later, I had inspiration.
The first thing I had to do was cut the shirt, leaving the buttons and buttonholes all full-length and intact to tie into a knot, and chopping the rest to reach my waist or thereabouts.
I then tried the shirt on and realised that it was going to take a lot more than cutting the length to turn this old shirt into something I could wear with pride. It was going to need darts. Measuring from the centre back of the shirt, I placed a dart each side. I also did the same on the front of the shirt, taking the darts up to bust height.
After adding the darts, I decided that the sleeves needed sorting out, so I cut them a bit before adding a 1.5" folded hem on the outside. I stitched this in place at the top and bottom of the sleeve. Finally, I added bias binding to finish the raw edges from cutting the bottom of the shirt. I chose a bright green for this, mainly because I had just enough sitting in my drawer!!
and voila, my vintage shirt was up-cycled and ready to wear! I now adore it and I wish it was still warm enough outside to get frequent wear out of it with high-waisted jeans! Nevertheless, it looks great with a pair of denim dungarees or a pinafore dress. And here I am in my fabulous handiwork.
Thank you so much for reading, peace and love xo
