de ja vu: my Castaway to Couture competition entry

I wasn't planning on entering this year's Castaway to Couture competition run by the Australian Sewing Guild, despite the amazing prizes on offer. I was just plain out of ideas, but the weekend before the competition closed I happened to find myself in an op shop where a large box pleat skirt made from wool in a bold print caught my eye. And in that instant I decided to enter the competition with only a few days to go.

Using New Look 6968, which is my go to sheath dress pattern, I turned the oversized skirt into a fitted sheath dress which is perfect for me to wear to work:

If you're thinking this refashion looks very familiar, you'd be right! I guess I am a one trick pony because this year's entry is pretty much exactly like last year's entry (posted here) which was also a large box pleat skirt I made into a fitted sheath dress using New Look 6968. I wear this grey dress frequently and there's always space for another great dress in my wardrobe, so despite being unimaginative I decided to stick with what I know works best and what I knew I could make in a short time:

In an attempt to be a little more creative, I decided to use the border print vertically instead of around the bottom of the skirt. There was enough fabric to make it either way, which is why a box pleat skirt is a perfect candidate for a refashion - once you've unpicked it and pressed the pleats out you have two large rectangular pieces of fabric just as though you had bought it fresh cut from a roll.

This skirt started life as a size 20 Fletcher Jones skirt, which was an iconic Australian label known for using Australian wool but has sadly since closed. I bought this on a 50% off day, so it cost me $6:

Using Claire Schaeffer's brown paper and vinegar method I managed to press the pleats mostly out, and although they are slightly still there it gives a bit of texture to the fabric.

I decided to place the coloured stripes on one side of my body, which meant that I had to cut one side out upside down. If you look closely you can see some white horizontal stripes within the grey and yellow vertical stripes which are on opposing sides on the front and back, but I doubt anyone else will notice this little detail.

I tried my best to line those stripes up vertically and horizontally, but the darts made that impossible:

I had to eke out the sleeves from the leftover fabric which meant that I couldn't match the stripes there either, but I think all these mismatched stripes makes the dress look very RTW. And the fact that several people have complimented me on the dress but no one has mentioned the stripes not lining up exactly just proves that no one cares about these details as much as we do!

Because I've made this dress so many times before, it came together quickly and fitted like a glove first time. The original skirt was unlined and had a short invisible zip, so I had to use new lining and a new invisible zip but I'll reuse the original zip in another project and there was hardly any fabric left of the original garment, and overall it was a good reuse of the original garment. The whole point of refashioning and recycling is to reduce waste, and it makes little sense to me when I see refashioning projects that use just a little bit of several garments - so much leftover scraps which absolutely no one needs anymore of. I'm also a little bit horrified when I see beautiful garments 'refashioned' just by chopping off sleeves or the skirt to make a mini dress, it makes me wonder if that project won't be worn often or last too long and is in effect just fast fashion as well.

Anyway, if you've read this far can I ask one more favour from you? You can vote for your favourite project over at the ASG website - there are some great other entries in the gallery, but if you like mine the best vote for entry 19 (vote here)!

Psssst! Wanna win a Baby Lock overlocker?

The Australian Sewing Guild is once again running its Castaway to Couture sewing competition and this year's first prize is an Eclipse DX overlocker from Baby Lock Australia. All you have to do is refashion a garment (or garments) into something new, take a photo and you're in with a chance!

Last year I entered my refashion of a big dowdy grey wool pleated skirt into a fitted sheath dress (posted here):

Even though I didn't win last year (I got one of the runner up prizes) I still got a great dress out of the process that I wear quite a lot, so that's a winner in my books.

Thankfully I already have a Baby Lock overlocker because this year I'm all out of inspiration! Nothing is 'speaking' to me and I haven't found anything to refashion, so I don't think I'll enter. But the competition is running until the 31 May 2017 so it's not too late for any of you reading along to enter though. You don't have to be an ASG member to enter, but you do need to live in Australia or New Zealand.

I'm not sponsored by the ASG in any way (just a happy member) or Baby Lock Australia (just a happy owner) - I just wanted to share the sewing love around. Those Baby Lock overlockers are amazing - the jet air threading and self regulating tension reduced my sewing frustrations hugely.

Good luck to all of you who enter!

Castaway to Couture - my grey skirt makeover

The Australian Sewing Guild is once again running a competition called 'Castaway to Couture' which requires entrants to refashion an existing garment into something new. The first prize is a Brother embroidery sewing machine, so if you are an Australian or New Zealand sewer you should definitely consider entering - you've still got until the 31st May so plenty of time. And if you're not going to enter yourself, well then - you should vote for me!!

I don't often bother with refashions since I have such a huge stash and refashions generally take much more time and effort, but the competition was enough incentive for me to finally getting around to doing something with this wool skirt I bought at a garage sale a few years ago for $5. This is what I came up with:

I've wanted to do something with this skirt for a long time because the fabric is so lovely. This is an Adam Bennett number, probably from the 1980s, and is made from pure wool. It was deeply pleated , but on me was too big and too long. It was really heavy too, due to how much material was in it.

Originally I planned to keep it as a skirt and make it smaller to fit, but I couldn't just chop a bit off the bottom because it would lose the proportions of the stripes, and I couldn't just take it in at the sides either because it was just one long piece with just one side seam.

The first thing that was required to was to get rid of those pleats. What a lot of work that was! If I didn't like this fabric so much I would have given up and just used one of the many perfectly good pieces of fabric in my collection.

I washed and soaked the fabric many times, and I pressed and pressed and pressed. I used the method Claire Schaeffer describes in her book Fabric Sewing Guide of placing on the fabric some brown paper that has been soaked with a 50/50 vinegar and water mix and pressing it with a hot iron until the paper is dry. It worked wonders at getting the creases out, but that vinegar smell sure did give me a craving for some fish and chips! The vinegar smell goes away though when the fabric dries. Here is the fabric after washing and soaking but before pressing:

And here is the fabric after pressing a few times with the brown paper and vinegar method:

The fabric feels very flat and smooth, but what I hadn't counted on though is that a visible line would remain along the edge of the pleats despite all the washing. You can faintly see in the photo above the visible vertical lines - I've just decided that it is a design feature, and that the fabric has vertical self stripes in addition to the horizontal coloured stripes!

These photos don't really show the vertical lines at all, but in the daylight they are quite noticeable.  The lines are evenly spaced across the front, and I managed to line them up on the bodice and the skirt, so hopefully everyone else just accepts it as a deliberate feature.

I used my favourite sheath dress pattern, New Look 6968, which I've used many times before with great success (see here, here, here, here and here!).  Funnily enough one of those previous versions was a refashion too - obviously the simple lines of this pattern and the small amount of fabric needed are perfect for refashioning.

I kept the hem of the original skirt, and managed to cut the skirt and the bodice out of the width of former skirt because it really was a very full skirt. The spacing between the stripes worked out pretty well when I wear it with a belt:

Without a belt at the waistline however it looks a bit plain and the proportion is a bit off there in the centre, as the stripe on the skirt is too far below the waistline:

There were a lot of stripes to match at the side seams and the centre back invisible zip, but with a lot of pinning and careful sewing I think I managed to get a pretty good match at all stripes, even the one interrupted by the dart at the bust line:

The reason I love this New Look pattern so much is that it has a waist seam with a separate bodice and skirt which means I can get such a good fit in the small of my back thanks to the waist seam and the darts. I find that putting darts into a single back piece never gets a close fit in my swayback as this style does.

There's not much more I can say about this pattern that I haven't said before - it's a great basic pattern that is quite simple to sew. I made this one a size larger than previous versions I've made because this fabric has no stretch and those previous versions are all a little bit tight now (they must be shrinking while hanging in my wardrobe, I'm sure!). This size is really comfortable to wear, but there is a bit of looseness around the bust and below the waist, but I think a bit of ease is necessary in a form fitting dress with no stretch.

I've fully lined this dress in some lining that has been in the stash a long time, and even used an invisible zipper that was salvaged from another garment, so this really was a cheap project to make. Unfortunately this project doesn't make any dent in my huge fabric collection at all, but it's certainly a great addition to my wardrobe.

So as I said at the beginning, the competition is open until the 31st May and I really encourage fellow Australians and New Zealanders to enter - who wouldn't want a fancy embroidery sewing machine or any of the other great prizes on offer?

Australian Sewing Guild featured member - me!

The Australian Sewing Guild has just launched its website with a much needed fresh new look and guess who just happens to be one of the first featured members? That's right - it is me! My husband thinks it's super hilarious, admittedly the photo is rather large and prominent on the website. Have a look for yourself here.

I was one of the lucky ducks who got to spend Saturday sewing at the Tessuti Surry Hill's store for the day and I made a lot of progress on my white blazer. It was so inspiring not only sewing with lovely ladies like Sharon, Maria, BeaJay and other non-blogging sewing ladies, but also to be surrounded all day be beautiful fabrics and creative people shopping there all day was also encouraging. The lovely Colette is so genuinely lovely and  friendly with all the customers, and it was a real pleasure to be there.

It was also lovely to be recognised by a blog reader, who was equally excited to see Sharon and they got talking about some project or other. And the funniest thing was when a mother dragged her daughter over to us wearing her school formal dress asking for our opinion as to how to make it more modest - it was a one shoulder strap dress that she wanted to somehow add lace sleeves to it.

Of course I couldn't escape without making a fabric purchase (or two!). I'm not restricting my fabric purchases although I am trying to sew from the stash as a first priority. But I already have plans for the two fabrics I purchased so they sort of don't really count as additions to the stash!

On the left is a Michael Kors rayon (which doesn't seem to be in the online store) that I'll make some sort of dress for work from, and on the right is a viscose jersey (Boardwalk Jersey) that I am planning to make a simple t-shirt style dress.

Hopefully I'll be back in a few days with a photo of my finished white blazer - I think that by putting it down here in writing I'll be forcing myself to come up with the goods!

Oh and can I finish with a whinge (yes Renata I'm going to whinge about Burda!) - my November issue still hasn't turned up and it's now more than half way through the month. How can I keep to my Burda challenge when they are keeping me hanging on like this?