Completed: One Mans Trash is Another (Wo)mans Treasure

Just a super quick post today on one of the three weekend projects I managed to complete this last weekend!! Yay for a super big dose of inspirational motivation and a rostered day off from work on Monday... impossible to have Mondayitis when you can start your week with a coffee and a sewing machine.

Anyway, this t'shirt started its life in our house as The Boy's shirt but I can't think of a single time he's worn it out as, in his words, he would look like a French Mime, lol :-)
I, on the other hand, loved the shirt and purchased it in the hope he'd come around and eventually wear it... but this Boy is stubborn so it became my painting shirt. It managed to survive a number of painting projects relatively unscathed until I came up with the idea it would make a perfect wearable muslin for the Sewaholic Renfrew tee and give me some stripe matching practice!


French Mime:
What The Boy thinks he would look like if he wore the shirt


I *cheated* and used the existing hems from the sleeves and shirt bottom so other than stripe matching it came together really fast! I used some navy stretch fabric from my stash for the neckband although I think I should have cut it a couple cms shorter as it tends to flop forward a bit despite the topstitching. I've made no other alterations or adjustments other than leave off the sleeve and bottom bands as I preferred to be lazy use the existing shirt hems.




After: Sewaholic Renfrew



Before: Men's striped t'shirt

























As you can see my selfie taking skills leave much to be desired! But hey, you get the general idea and I figured a post with dodgy photos is better than no post at all :-)

Overall I'm yet again impressed with these Sewaholic Patterns, the simple easy to understand instructions and beautiful, well fitting design make this a great wardrobe basic. I'm already planning another couple of these tees for my summer wardrobe!

Pattern: Sewaholic Renfrew
Size 8, no alterations or adjustments

Inspiration: Miranda Kerr's Summery Shirtdress

With summer fast approaching (can you believe we are halfway through September already?!) and too late in the season to sew any more winter coats and other snugly clothes I've started to plan my summer wardrobe. Plan is a loose term as far as my sewing wardrobe goes as generally the order of which I sew things varies depending on the fabric and pattern availability and in the past usually whatever caught my eye.

But this summer I'm trying something a little different which has been working surprisingly well for me so far.
A couple of weeks ago I went through my pattern stash and pulled out all the patterns I planned to use for summer clothes, then matched them up with fabric from my stash and put them in order in a box. So now, instead of procrastinating over my next sewing project, all I do is pull out the next pattern from my box and the correlating fabric and get started... seems to be working a treat so far so lets hope I stick with it :-)



Miranda Kerr in her gorgeous shirt dress


I've had a bad case of dress envy with this next project of mine. Its been almost as consuming as my Sass & Bide Capecoat project but its been on the back burner mainly due to winter but also because Ive been searching for the perfect pattern to use. And then Named Patterns conveniently released their Fall/Winter '14 Collection. I have a serious love affair with all things Named at the moment and its showing no sign of letting up!!



Named Patterns - Wenona Shirtdress AW14 Collection


I was pretty excited to see Named had brought out a shirtdress in their latest collection! I personally love their patterns because of the way they fit my body shape and for their on trend styles and little unique details and this pattern is exactly that. Not only do you get a gorgeous shirtdress but also a cute button down shirt too! Good value for money as far as I'm concerned.


Named Patterns - Wenona Shirtdress sketch


I'm also pretty excited as to how similar the style lines are to the dress Miranda is wearing! With a few easy adjustments I think I could end up with something very similar... however... I love this dress so much I just had to find similar fabric and surprisingly I found some online that is pretty much identical to the fabric on Miranda's dress!! And in beautiful, drapey, soft rayon too!!

I know, I know, no imagination you say but I would have bought this dress if it wasn't eye-wateringly expensive!!

Geometric Patterned Rayon for my Miranda inspired shirtdress


In order to get a maxi shirtdress I'm planning to lengthen the skirt so it reaches my ankles. I think Miranda's dress is a little on the short side and being the tall girl I am I think it looks better either mid calf or ankle length. I'm also planning to remove the sleeves and bind the armholes with self made bias binding. I might have a play around with the armhole shape, maybe making it into a slight racer back style. I love the black buttons on Miranda's dress so I'm thinking I might steal that idea too.

Anyone else planning or sewing their summer wardrobe yet?! Day dreaming about floaty sun dresses and short shorts, days by the beach, BBQs with friends and blue cloudless skies... bring on Summer!!