Flashing my shoulders

It's really rare that I get on board with something as obviously on trend as the off the shoulder look and for a long time I was steadfastly ignoring it.  Particularly as lots of the tops have ruffles round the top and I'm a bit allergic to ruffles!  However, when this off the shoulder top popped up on my radar, it was love and the refashion lightbulb went off in my head.

And to create the look, I had the perfect shirt in my refashion pile. It was fate! 

This shirt was a seriously nice quality Ted Baker shirt and I had a momentary feeling of guilt as I cut into it. This was one refashion that really needed to work or the waste gods would smite me. *Spoiler alert* it did!

Obviously mine has shorter sleeves than the inspiration garment.  I figured that if it was warm enough for bare shoulders, this also meant short sleeves.

Red detail binding on the tie sleeves plus bonus glimpse of a friends bike (I really must take better care to take photos in an area free of random objects)

I really love this top which surprises me as I didn't think it would suit me at all!  If the UK weather was only a bit better, I make a few more but unfortunately this is really not an item I need too many of.  However, I'm happy with just this one great one.

For those of you who fancy jumping on board the off the shoulder trend, I've put together a mini tutorial. 

Cut off the top, using the back yoke as a cutting line. 

I was planning on using the front of the shirt as the back of my top and so I unpicked the pocket. Portia did a post as part of the refashioners series last year about getting rid of the holes when you unpick a pocket.  Next I cut a length of 1" wide elastic to fit around my shoulders where I wanted the top to sit. Just a tip, this needs to be quite snug, it's the only thing holding up the top.  I speak from experience, I had to unpick my top and tighten it, trust me that's an annoyance you don't want to have.   Finish the top edge in your preferred way. Then there are a couple of ways to do the next step; you could create a channel for the elastic and feed it through and then sew the ends of the elastic together.  Or do what I did which was to sew the elastic together and fold over the top edge of the top over the elastic and create the channel with the elastic in place.

One of the things I loved about my inspiration top was the sleeve detail.  To recreate these, I cut the sleeves into this kinda shape (I have no words for what this shape is):

The long thin bit is on the side of the sleeve furthest away from the body.

Slit down the middle, continuing to cut until your slit extends beyond the length of the other side of the sleeve.  This will give you nice long ties, maximising the decorative effect.

I got lucky with this shirt as it had some cute details like the contrasting yoke.  I made use of this by cutting it into binding to add detail to the sleeves.  

Sadly there was only enough to bind part of the sleeve but I made binding for the rest of the sleeve from other off-cuts from the shirt-maximising the refashioning!  However, you could use some other contrast binding if you felt like it.  Once the sleeve edges are bound, your shirt is pretty much done.

I tried the top on at this stage and I wanted it to be a bit less huge at the waist so I added some darts in the back but this is a matter of taste and personal preference.

Enjoy your new top!

Teacup pincushion tutorial

I'm really sorry to anyone who thinks that this is far too early to be speaking about Christmas but a) I'm a Christmas nut and b) handmade Christmas presents require time to make.  If any of you were thinking about making some Christmas (or any of other kind of) gifts for sewists in your life, I thought I'd post this tutorial.

This is a really quick make and has such cute results. 

You will need: 

Teacup and saucer

Glue gun and sticks or superglue

Scrap of fabric approx 18cmx18cm

Toy stuffing/leftover wadding

Sandpaper

I found this teacup and saucer in a local charity shop and it's going to be perfect for someone special in my life.

First thing to do is thoroughly wash and dry the cup and saucer. Then sand the bottom edge of the cup and the inset circle on the saucer, this will help the glue stick.

Apply glue to the bottom rim of the cup and stick to the saucer. 

Now create a ball of stuffing big enough to sit in the cup and not fall to the bottom

Take the scrap of fabric, (some of you may recognise this as a leftover scrap from my birthday Belladone) iron it if it looks as creased as this one, and place stuffing in the middle and fold the edges round the ball.

Roughly stitch edges together on under side of ball. You don't need to be super neat about this, this bit of the ball will be invisible and glued inside the cup. It's just to hold it altogether while you do the assembly.

Put glue in a ring all round the inside of the cup, about 1cm down from the top edge. 

Put the ball into the cup and push it onto the glue. 

And you're done! All you need to do is add pins! I love that there is also space for other bits and pieces in the saucer. 

This is ear marked for someone special in my life. Right, I'm off to play Christmas elf, I've got lots more presents to make, only 8 weeks to go folks!  And on that note, have a happy Halloween.