Making a guimpe and refashioning a fleamarket blouse
I refashioned a thrift store cotton and silk blouse to an Edwardian blouse by adding some vintage lace details and a cotton tulle guimpe.
Making regency shoes – a little experiment in refashion
I made a pair of regency shoes out of a pair of modern pumps I found second hand. Just a little of taffeta fabric, glue, bow and nailpolish(!) was needed.
Alpi trousers and a refashioned blouse à la Indiana Jones
I managed to grab literally the last Alpi trousers pattern from Named clothing. I was lucky since I had planned on making these trousers for a while. However, don’t bother trying to buy this pattern, at least from Named. Some of their retailers might still have some of these pattern left even though this pattern is fairly old. Anyway, I like the basic look of these trousers. They are quite masculine, pretty loose and have a bit lower waistline than in most of the trousers I have lately made. I got some nice army green cotton sateen in a nice bargain from Materials, Helsinki. The fabric has a tiny bit…
Pimp your bike (Free crochet pattern for a skirt guard included!)
Pimping your bicycle is a nice project. I crocheted a skirt guard and made a nice basket liner that uses old pillow case lace as a decoration. To add some more refashioning, I turned old baby mitten holders into bicycle skirt garters.
Successes and difficulties with silk – Fifi pyjamas and a blue camisole
Fifi I found this big silk blouse from a flea market and, since it costed only 3 €, I couldn’t resist buying it to see whether I could refashion it into something useful for me. I browsed through pattern sites and finally decided on Fifi pyjamas pattern by Tilly and the buttons. Fifi consists on a camisole and a pair of shorts and it has sizes ranging from UK 6 to 20 (EUR 34 to 48). I chose to make the size UK 10 which is my usual size and matched best my measurements. The blouse was a basic short sleeved button up and I started with unravelling all the…
Cape refashion
Several years ago I got a wool wrap as a present. It was soft and made of a great quality wool, but the style did not really suit me and the wrap stayed in my closet. Finally I decided to refashion the wrap into a stylish cape. I found a cape pattern from a Finnish Moda sewing/crafts magazine. Unfortunately I have since lost the magazine so I cannot tell exactly which pattern I used. This is how the wrap looked like: I shortened the pattern a lot, since I wanted a short cape. Because of the length of the wrap I had plenty of extra fabric to make a standing…
Dyeing cashmere
I go through my closets regularly to throw away any unnecessary items. These two cashmere cardigans have haunted me for years. They are not super expensive top quality cashmere but they are soft and warm and expensive for me. However, the colour doesn’t do me any favours in neither of these cardigans and I don’t know why on earth I did buy them in the first place! (Probably, because they were the two least ugly colours available…) The blue is so 50s ice-cream bar cutie blue and the gray makes me look mousy. The pearly buttons do not help. I’ve been dreaming of dyeing these cardigans but I couldn’t find…
