Reduce, Reuse, Recycle … Refashion? (and my #mmmay15)

In preparing for Me-Made-May’15, I discovered a few things when cleaning up my closet a few weeks ago.  Such as:

• I still have the shoes that I wore to my wedding almost 27 years ago in a box in my closet.  I find that amazing for some reason.  I put them back safely.
• I have clothes hanging in my closet that I don’t wear, good clothes – slightly used, but good.  Those have already been taken to my local charity/second-hand shop.
• I also have a few dresses hanging in my closest that I don’t wear, but can’t part with, not many, just a few.  I have to do something with them.
• And lastly, I have a few skirts that I cannot wear because I don’t have tops to match. After some thought, I decided that all it would take is sewing up a few simple tops in solid colours – a black, a red, and maybe a blue too.

I have decided to remedy the last two by altering the dresses into tops that I would wear and digging in my fabric stash and sewing up some tops to fill in the gaps in my wardrobe.

This is one of the dresses I made but didn’t really care for.  I always loved the cotton flowery print, but the fabric was light weight – good for a top, bad for a dress.

So I chopped and sewed and moved the lace up to the neckline and now I have a top that I will wear.

This is one of the other dresses.  This print I love even more, but again the cotton was too light weight for a dress – better suited for a top.More chopping and sewing and moving of lace – this time to the sleeves – and again I have a top that I will wear.

I am thinking about changing another dress into a top, but that is still in the thinking stages and I might not have the right fabric in my stash to do so anyway.  We shall see…

I did manage to find the right colours I needed – black, red and blue – in my stash.  They are leftover from other projects (I can’t even remember which ones).

I also found the right patterns to use.  McCalls M6563 view A, for my black knit top.  It only needs a small amount of fabric and I only have a small amount of fabric.  I also don’t have a top with a cowl neck yet!

For my red top, I am going to use McCalls M7093, view A.  It’s another top that needs little fabric and it helps that it is made up of small pieces, easier to squeeze them on here and there on my leftover red knit fabric.  I didn’t actually buy the pattern to make view A, but rather one of the other views with the lovely colour blocking – maybe next time.  I figure I might be able to go wild with the topstitching on this view though! 🙂  I just saw on Elle Gee Makes‘ blog she has just sewed up view B and it’s lovely!

The blue fabric I haven’t decided on yet, but I’ll let you know how my tops turn out when done.

Just to finish off, here is a Gallery of my first week or so of Me-Made-May’15.  I like putting them on Pinterest, but I will pop them in here too.  I’m not kidding when I say I wear nothing but yoga pants & tops and jeans when I’m not at work – I wore them 3 days in a row last week!  #mmmay15

May 1

May 2, 8, 23 & 24 – back to my old “uniform”

May 3 & 4, 9 & 10, 17 & 18

May 3 & 4, 9 & 10, 17 & 18 – lazy weekend clothes again!

May 5

May 6

May 7

So when you sew up something you don’t care for – do you take the time to “redo” it?  or is it just off to the charity/second-hand shop for someone else to enjoy?

Happy Sewing!