Sunday, May 02, 2010

Deconstructing clothing

What I'm into at the moment - sewingwise - is deconstruction. It has opened up a whole vista of new possibilities that suit a creative but lazy person like me. Oh, and did I mention cheap as well. That's me - cheap. Anyway, what you do is go to your local op shop - and instead of coming away with very little because you are fussyish about what you'll wear ready-made, you can grab a heap of stuff that you see potential in, by just removing a collar or cutting shorter, or adding another garment to it. See my four items below. . .
No 1 is a nice blouse, which I've cut shorter and added a length of my favourite material to. Then a panel section which I've sewn paua beads on.

No. 2 is a man's sturdy 'lumberjack' shirt, which I cut the sleeves off, used the cuffs to add some definition to the waistline, and voila - a waistcoat.
No.3 is a stretch jersey/sweater, that I've cut back to 3/4 length sleeves, and used just the sleeves and bottom half, and amazingly they fitted perfectly into a stretchy cotton shirt, with eyelets, once I took those sleeves out. Now I have a nice long tunic top. And look (below) the little eyecatchers on this one are watch faces sewn onto the collar.

Finally, no. 4 is this one made today out of another jersey/sweater, which I've used for the top half, and a hank of material I bought for the strip and the longer half at the bottom. This one took a bit of getting right because I made it too slim, but with some extra gussets in the back, it's now working. Phew.

. . . don't look too close.
And the detail is the different coloured buttons from Mum's button tin, which have been around most of my lifetime.

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