Canada Colours #5: Red Upcycled Tee

Continuing with the Canadian 'Red' inspiration I've up-cycled a tee I bought on the discount rail of a local charity shop.

The original top was very straight in the body and a very large size. I cut the sleeves off and up the sides, leaving the shoulders, neckline and hem intact. 

I recut the body to be more shaped and a better fit for my pear shape. I unpicked the double layer balloon sleeves, hemmed the outer eyelet layer and reinserted them as gathered sleeves, discarding the plain red cotton sleeve linings.

I didn't manage to find if I'd taken a before photo, but did find it on the retailers website (in a smaller size) see below.

In reality the sleeves stuck out from the body a lot more!

This is a summer only top as it's very hard to get any normal layer over the sleeves.

Zipped jacket upcycle

I thrifted this jacket from the £1 rail for the zips but then thought I could enlarge it to fit me.

In the end it turned out to be a lot more work than I'd originally imagined!

The original jacket had had the sleeves shortened and neatly hand stitched in place. This meant they were too short for me. So I added cuffs in pink knit fabric.

The jacket was too small so I added strips of pink fabric into the sides of the body and sleeves. To do that I had to unpick the white binding round the hem. The front and back hems had a very deep scoop, which I didn't like at the front, so I unpicked the zip and made the curve less exaggerated at the front.

I cut some binding strips from my pink athletic knit and attached them round the hem. The white binding then looked odd, so I unpicked the binding round the hood and replaced it with pink and also bound the front opening. I put in a different zip down the front in a pinky burgundy shade.

I removed the white drawstring and replaced it with a pink shoelace.

I did debate making a pink chest pocket to cover the logo (siksilk) but had run out of steam by this point!

An online shot I found of the original jacket

recycled jeans Bestie bag

 This bestie bag was made from some old jeans which were worn through at the crutch (where a patch would've looked a bit odd) so they went into the denim box and after a while got cut up into a bag

I used this fun quilting cotton for the lining

And unpicked and resewed the back pockets onto the outsides of the bag.

I made a self strap. It required some hammering and wrangling with pliers to get it through the strap adjuster

Fleece alteration

I had this navy and white RTW fleece turtleneck top which I wore occasionally when it was very cold.

I thought it would get more wear with a zip front. So I unpicked the collar, ironed a strip of interfacing down the inside of the front, cut down the centre front and cut a new shaped collar out of the spare fabric.

Then sewed the collar together and added a rescued zip down the front.

It is quite a slim fit and would only work over a thin tee, so I may add side panels and pockets in plain navy blue fleece in future.

Tweaked top

This top started out as a gathered skirt many years ago. At some point after that I recut it into a woven tee shirt and left the bits in a bag. Later I found the bits and sewed it up into a very lightweight summer top. Unfortunately the pattern I used wasn't with it, so I can't easily replicate what I did.

Last week the weather was hot for the first time this year, so I pulled out my hot weather clothes and wore the top. It was OK, but the body was a bit long and the sleeves a bit shorter than I like.

Lightbulb moment - I cut 2 1/2" off the hem, did a lot of unpicking and resewing to have a shorter body and a ruffle on the sleeves.

It'll get worn out of the house now, rather than just at home.

New Sleeves for Old Shirts

I own a number of short sleeved shirts from Regatta, unfortunately the cut of the very short sleeves was neither comfortable nor flattering and they were in the alter or donate pile.
So I decided to remove the short sleeves and add alternative sleeves to the shirts, which has made them all wearable. I used the sleeve and cuff pattern from the Prima Shirtdress (March 2020 Prima Magazine) as the starting point.

I'll start with my last one as it is my favourite.

I didn't have any co-ordinating print fabric in my resources for this one, so used plain white and added 3 machine embroideries on each sleeve, all done with the same pink/wine/tan threads. The butterfly at the top is built in to the Janome 200E, the dragonfly is from Kiwi Kreatives and the floral from Oh My Crafty Supplies Inc.

The red and tan check shirt has white embroidered sleeves.

This shirt has turquoise batik sleeves.

This shirt has pale blue sleeves, picking up the blue in the check.

This green and white check shirt has sleeves from a green sewing themed fabric.

This blue and white checked shirt has 3/4 sleeves in a blue, white and aqua print and extra long cuffs with 3 buttons.

Although a lot of work went into the cuffs and their 6 buttons and button holes it is my least favourite as the 3/4 length sleeves are rather awkward. I suspect it'll get edited again to have elbow length sleeves.

This white shirt has bright floral print elbow length sleeves, the fabric rescued from a gone wrong dress project.

I don't have any pictures of the shirts before the alterations, however they were all of this sort of style. The short sleeves taper towards the end, in a way that my own arms do not ;-) hence the need for the work.