Go shopping and buy some new stuff!
Well I as usual bought mostly black, but amongst the new clothes was a very nice high low dress. At that time the term "high-low" and the concept of it was relatively new. Although this style had been around at least since the 1970s, but that was before my time, and for me also this was new, and I loved it. So anyway, I bought this (then) very nice new dress.
So these tops are a copy of a RTW dress I bought back in 2013 ( for £20) and
that is now in holes. The original dress ended up used as a winter nighty more than a dress, but
it has been much loved. And is now really rather worn out as you can see from these photos.
Its got a kind of burn out cross in the original fabric.
This is the old dress:
And this is one of the new ones:
I could not find any cross or skull fabric for these so went just with plain very thin black jersey. The fabric is £1.00 /m and both pieces have a slight slubbed look. I can make more of these or maybe just plain Ts from the rest of this fabric, because there is still about 3m left ( in 2 bits) they are actually slightly different fabrics but thats fine. Both are from Pound Fabrics (UK) and in both cases there was a minimum order of 3m but at £1 a meter who cares.
Its easy to sew though has puckered slightly down
the back seams but that it irons flat and I think should wear in
eventually once I wear them. And of course I will probably also wear
these in bed so who cares.
Well, maybe cos it would hang better without a CB seam?
I actually hurt my self a few weeks ago - well I dislocated and broke
a toe - so sewing has been difficult hence I made virtually nothing
over the last few weeks and thats why my blogging has been so sparse
lately. Really I am amazed how much a small digit can get in the way of
normal life. I would not have believed the smallest toe on one foot
being broken would mean I find it too painful to sew. Its my machine
pedal foot though and it was shear agony so I had to just give up for a
while. I find it very difficult to sew using the other foot.
Anyway it still hurts but I can do things again now so I made these two tops. They have been on my to do list for a year or so but I was looking for a pattern. In the end I ad libbed. There is no actual pattern. I simply folded my RTW top and cut round the relevant parts. The sleeves were the most difficult and I had to cut quite a bit off the sleeve head to make them fit but having sorted one I just cut the other 3 to match ( using the bit I cut off as a guide for the other sleeves) and then sewed up both garments and here they are:
I am really very pleased with these dresses. I only actually hemmed the one and it did need pressing to look right.
This one has no hems ( yet - I have not yet decided whether to hem or just leave as it is). Its just overlocked on the edges.
The other is currently just overlocked but I may yet add a hem. I am undecided. I really like plain overlocking, but it would probably last longer with an actual hem. Both have T shirt necks with a small strip to finish them. I did the neck different widths on purpose because I am not sure which I will prefer. Depending on how they feel when worn will probably dictate future neck widths on other tops. I doubt I will bother to alter these though.
The two new tops also have much longer sleeves so I can pull them over my hands when I want to. I tend to get arthritus in my hands so sleep recently with them covered and have really taken to wrapping up my hands in tubes such as old socks so its probably time to just make some very long sleeves. I do own mitts but I find I wake with the thumb over the hand anyway because that is warmer and the difference in how my hands work in the morning if I sleep with them covered is immense so this is for now the way to go I think.
Have a great week and thanks for popping by,
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