Nothing in this post is write-home-about exciting, but I have been laying down some handy layering basics for the cooler days that will be coming up …. sometime? … 🙂 I’m thinking ahead, to autumn. Planning, you know. Being organised hehehe 🙂
Remember this dress? I put it on recently and my husband announced kindly but firmly that he thought it was weird. His words sounded its death knell. I have put this on once or twice since I made it and each time felt sorta… well yes, now you mention it, weird is exactly the right word. I finally acknowledged that the fabric was wrong for the design, too thick and heavy and with too much body to drape gracefully enough.
My bad. I now know that with a lot of the Pattern Magic 3 designs you do need reeeeally drape-y fabric (hmmm, I think I’ve said that before; once or twice, or ten times…) On the plus side I still like the bodice part of the dress and I had also used the leftovers of the same fabric to make a successful little T-shirt sooooo;
bit of butchery re-fashioning later…
and now we have…
I added waist bands and armbands.
and…
and…
not from the dress, but squeezed from the fabric leftovers …
I also made this using the last leftovers of bright cobalt blue fabric (same as the “bat” shirt) and it went into the iDye Crimson dye-bath simultaneously with the cranberry T-shirt 2 above. I love the deep royal purple colour that it is now; will layer well with the jewel tones of the other T-shirts for some groovy colourful winter layering, when the time comes 🙂 The texture of that cheap n’ cheerful fabric has to be one of my favourite knits ever. I just wish it had come in ivory, rather than that intense blue colour. Just think of the dyeing possibilities. They would have been infinite 😀
Apart from the first Tshirt pictured, which is the original bodice of the dress on p18 of Pattern Magic 3 by Tomoko Nakamichi, the others are made up using the pattern formerly known as Burdastyle 06/2011, 120 first written about here. In order to get a nice fit that pattern has been shaved and sliced and diced and completely and utterly altered until each and every seam-line is different from the original. As well, I don’t use the neckline facing pieces at all. As for the zip?? well forgetaboutit ….So I guess it can’t lay claim to being Burdastyle 06/2011, 120 anymore.
But my carved-up version is a great fitting T-shirt pattern now… 😀 Yay for that!
Bravo! That certainly turned into a lot of nice tops!
Great tees! You can never have too many. Every wardrobe needs them and I love all the autumn colours. You are good with the dye and also refashioning.
Do I understand correctly that all four of these tops came from the original dress! Amazing. I mentioned you to another blogger yesterday, Adventures in Refashioning I think as she has been working with Pattern Magic too.
So many wonderful t-shirts! Of course you wouldn't let so much good fabric go to waste. Now that I see your refashioning projects I am getting a little braver in that department. Used to be I would just give away the offending garment with no thought to the possible reuse of the fabric. I thank you for your inspiration!
Excellent t shirts, fabulous fabric thriftiness and dyeing – you are very inspiring.
I am giggling about the pattern formerly known as Burda 6-11-120. It is amazing how a useful pattern can morph after a few reiterations.
Wow! What great re-fashioning! You can never have enough tees!
I really like the colour you got with that last one.
Wow, great t-shirts! I love the colors. That was a clever way to reuse the fabric. Sounds like you'll get more use out of the t-shirts than the dress. 🙂
I don't know if I like the sewing or the dying (sp?) better. I notice none of your Ts is long sleeved, which is something that I absolutely have to have in winter here (along with thermal vests and wool sweaters). I'm guessing it doesn't get quite as cold in Perth?
Hello, I´m an avid follower of your blog. Everything you sew look so stylish and unique… I was wondering about the Pattern Magic books, are they useful for a begginer or do you have to be an expert to use them? Which one would you recomend if you had to choose from Pattern Magic 1 or 2 (number three is not out yet in Europe, I think) Could you help me with that? Thank you.
Very impressive! It's lovely to have the cupboard stocked with basics, sort of like looking at a pantry full of home-made jam!
I know first hand how the word of the husband can end a life of a dream LOL . But mine is always right, in grand scheme of things! Great solution anyway)))
What a great save! The cranberry tee is my fave of these, but all are nice. I am sorting through older clothes right now too so I can make Sorbettos and Senchas for summer. (Unintentional alliteration)
I love your cranberry, the blue turned out very very nice as well. T-shirts are so versatile, I can't wait to see where all these pop up in your wardrobe.
gosh, 4 T shirts from one dress – amazing. SOUnds like you will be making another dress though so looking forward to seeing your next rendition.
Wonderful use of fabric – and isn't it nice to get 'something for nothing'.
For future reference – we don't listen to husbands re clothing.
A great Tshirt pattern would be used over and over and over here. At some point I'm going to work on that. I love plain colored fitted shirts (as it appears you do too.)
Did you do a dye tutorial somewhere and I missed it? If you haven;t, could you? Pretty please?
I'll take a look at your dye-ing posts. It seems that you are doing really small scale stuff, so i was interested in that. he he … might need to dye some of Gideon's old stained white cotton tee-shirts, but I don't really need to fill the washing machine, ya know? And what if I want them all different colors? So I'll read your posts. Have you had any trouble with them bleeding color in later washes?
Nice save and good for you for making up so many t-shirts at one time. I really, really need to do this!