So new top… well, new? not really, this funky little jacket was until recently a pair of menswear-inspired, wide-legged, linen trousers, that have been sitting in my re-fashioning bag for a coupla years now. True! I took them out to wear as fancy dress last year, but they went straight back into the bag afterwards!
I originally made these trousers back in 2009 using Burda 7944, and they have been good trousers. I wore them a lot and even featured them in a 6 different ways post forever ago.
But eventually they got to the stage where they looked like a dishrag practically as soon as they went on and got “knees” in them instantly. That’s linen for ya; I love it to bits but if it’s not a quality weave it does tend to lose its integrity quickly. This linen was not particularly fine-grade in the first place. Some linen trousers can get away with the dish-raggy look but not a tailored design like this one.
I’ve re-made them into a loose-sleeved jacket thingy. I’ve done this very same re-fashion once before, making a boxy little jacket out of a pair of Mum’s old cast-off three-quarter pants, but these trousers started out with quite a different shape to those pants so have ended up as quite a different shaped jacket. The waistband is close-fitted, not loose, and those long wide legs with a satisfyingly deep cuff have resulted in long wide sleeves, still with that satisfyingly deep cuff on the ends. You put it on with unzipped fly, and then zip it up down! and do up the buttons, just like when it was trousers but upside down. Cool huh? I really like it in it’s new identity. Making something like this is deeply satisfying to me. Taking something old, unwanted and un-chic and making it into something different; and I use the term different as in the kind of thing you rarely see a pattern for. It’s hardly mainstream, is it? This is why I sew; to make things for myself that are individual and unusual.
A quick run-down on the procedure…
Firstly, you cut off the legs to give a “body” section, and cut open the inner leg seam from one inner leg to the other.
as my son says; ironing is for the weak!!!
Re-stitch both the front and back crotch seams to be straight lines from the waistband(back)/bottom of zip(front) to the old-crotch/new-neckline opening, Cut off excess fabric (the old-crotch curves).
My trousers had pockets; stitch the opening closed and trim off the pocket bags inside. I know I know, it’s slightly painful to remove pockets, even useless ones, but they just do not work in this design. I also switched the old plastic, colour-matched buttons I had used previously for nacre buttons sewn on upside down with the mottley-brown underneath showing, just because.
Stitch up the shoulder seams and cut armhole curve on the body section, and a sleevecap curve at the top of the cut-off legs, now sleeves. If you have a great fitting shirt pattern then use this as a guide. I just tried it on a few times, pinned it and winged it, being sure to keep both sides symmetrical.
Set the sleeves into the body section.
Fold in a hem around the neckline and stitch it down however you choose, I used a short bias cut strip of silk, leftovers from
this top, invisibly fell-stitched.
Don’t know if it’s obvious or not, but it was crazy windy while I was taking these photos. My tripod actually blew over once! Goodness knows why I pick the absolute blasting-est days to get out and photograph my makes. I must be some kind of freaking masochist. Hair; styled by gale-force winds. Lovely, not. But, seize the moment, and all that. After all, this is what I actually look like here. Keeping it real. Man, I’m a loon.
This one gave me a laugh when I saw it!
Details:
Jacket; refashioned from a pair of Burda 7944 trousers, gunmetal linen
Shorts; Burda 7723, themselves refashioned from an old skirt, details here, and see my review of this shorts pattern here
Tshirt (underneath); self-drafted, white cotton jersey, details here
Sandals; c/o Misano
