MAKE DO AND MEND - old clothes - altering, upcycling, re-sizing, customising etc

littlepinkbiscuits

Chris25 wrote: »

And thanks littlepinkbiscuits - had a look at that blog & absolutely love the coat that someone made from a blanket!

Ahh, no problem! Was that the Renegade seamstress? She's brilliant!

Renegade seamstress

lindens

gsymoo wrote: »

We only have one fabric shop on guernsey so charity shops are a great way to find fabric, esp. mens shirts.

note to self : move to Guernsey and open a fabric shop

Catcherupper14

littlepinkbiscuits wrote: »

Ahh, no problem! Was that the Renegade seamstress? She's brilliant!

Renegade seamstress

Thank you - I have added all the blogs mentioned in this thread to my favourites.

carefullycautious

Evil_Olive wrote: »

I've been searching the MSE forums for a while, for a dedicated thread dealing with the sewing side of upcycling - altering, re-sizing, customising, making over and re-using/recycling old clothes (a bit like the Shabby Chic thread but geared to sewing, and clothes in particular) as it would be fun to swap ideas and see how other people have altered things beyond all recognition, customised them, made them fit or brought them up to date (I am doing a LOT of this at the moment - see below - and would really enjoy such a thread) Hopefully it could also take in accessories like belts, shoes, jewellery etc.

I'm thinking along the lines of people posting before and after pics of their projects with a bit of blurb about what they did to it to achieve the end result, techniques used and price paid for item if it was a particularly good bargain.
Tips & tricks for minimum effort size/style alterations,
Stories of really nasty things you've managed to turn into wearable things,
How you've managed to incorporate bits of your scrap or haberdashery stash you thought you'd never use.
Past disasters/successes and what NOT to do.
Pics of clothes/items you don't know what to do with so that other posters can suggest ideas.
That kind of thing.

I didn't want to be presumptious and start a new thread as I was sure there must already be one (lots of Old Stylers do dressmaking and upcycling of old and charity shop clothes, surely?) but I couldn't find one despite going back way into the archives. Asked on the re-use/recycle thread and got the impression that people would like one so I'm having a go. Please feel free to point me in the right direction if it already exists - thanks.

I will get together a couple of pics of my latest project and try to kick things off with a before and after of a truly nasty item which I'm attempting to make much nicer ..... unless someone else gets there first .....?

Bit of background....
When I was a teenager (in the 80s ) I was a charity shop addict. Back then it was considered deeply shameful and a little suspect to frequent charity shops by most people. I was thought highly eccentric (at best) by my family (my sister's usual reaction to my purchases was "Ugh, nasty. You weirdo tramp" :rotfl: )

Charity shops were dark smelly places run by mad old ladies where you had to dig through large floor-bound piles of festering garments to find stuff. When you did find something the old ladies would make up a price off the top of their heads. On the plus side, the price was usually about 5p, often as low as 1p and never more than 30p
I used to go in with a pound (note ) or fifty pence and emerge with one, sometimes two, black dustbin bags stuffed full.

At those prices, I often wasn't bothered about whether the items fit or flattered me, intending to take to the sewing machine and alter or customise them. I also rarely let mum/sisters throw clothes away, sneaking them back out of the bin when they weren't looking. I think I had a problem :shocked:
My excuse is that my taste in dress was (and still is to a certain extent) a little eccentric/alternative and I simply can't buy the things I want to wear any other way.

I did alter, and wear, many of them but, needless to say, a large amount ended up in the loft, unaltered and unworn.
A couple of years ago my mum gave me (aged 43) an ultimatum - remove your junk from my loft or pay for the skip it's going into

I now have 47 - yes FORTY SEVEN :eek: full to bursting black bin bags full of old clothes in my own loft - many of the later ones with the charity shop price tags still attached. I've not seen most of them for 20 years and it's like a lucky dip! Some of the items would have been classed as 'vintage' even when I got them (1920s - 1950s) except the idea of 'vintage' only applied to cars back then, clothes were just 'Second Hand'. Others have since 'become vintage' while sitting in my mum's loft (1960s/70s/80s) Others are just plain nasty but made of good fabric or have some other redeeming feature.

I have a bit more time on my hands these days and have been slowly going through them and customising/altering them as per original intentions.
Would love to swap ideas as there's a LOT to go

You are the ideal person to read 'Vintage Vixens' Blog she is amazing.

littlepinkbiscuits

Vintage Vixen is brilliant, I follow her blog too! Also Curtise of The Secondhand Years loves wearing vintage and second hand, Sally at Charity Shop Chic transforms odd items she rescues from charity shops and Helga Von Trollop is a vintage loving Aussie living in New Zealand, currently making dresses out of sheets. For plain sewing (no transformations but plenty of nitty gritty troubleshooting) I follow Miss P and Did You Make That?

Phew, sorry this post is a bit link-heavy!

girlinayellowdress

Shall be following with interest but probably not getting my machine out until after christmas. I do have a few questions though. First I have a beautiful designer skirt picked up from a charity shop but has a rather tarty split from the top of the thigh to the floor, any suggestions on sewing it up or inserting some sort of fabric so it does not pull. Also dry clean material, I always use to risk and wash but any advice as I need to be extra careful with a few designer bits. Then lastly, anyone have any views on dying vintage materials as my mother said not all vintage take to dyes.

Evil_Olive

Hi Pinksteps,
Whereabouts on the skirt is the split - is it on the side (where the side seam is) or a little to the front of the skirt? If towards the front, does it turn into a seam as it gets towards the top or does it just stop?
Does it look as though the split is just a single straight cut/slit or has it been shaped a little and therefore has some fabric missing?
Laying the skirt out flat on the floor can help you to work out the above.
A pic would help other posters suggest things, if you know how to do that?

RE dyeing vintage clothes.
They're no different to modern clothes really - it all depends on the type of fabric and whether the item is washable or not.
Your mum might have got that idea because a larger percentage of vintage clothes (mainly the 1960s/70s items) were made from 100% synthetic fabrics (harder to dye) or because (mainly the 1950s and earlier items) they were more likely to be dry clean only and liable to shrink or go out of shape when washed/soaked in a dye bath.
Also, very old vintage items (pre-1950s) often don't have any labels saying what the fabric is made of or whether it's washable.

Do the vintage items you want to dye have any labels in showing fibre content or washing instructions, and if so, what do they say?

Evil_Olive

Evil_Olive wrote: »

My last project was a dress that I swear was made for a transvestite
Really wide shoulders and back with very shallow bust shaping, shoulder to waist measurement at least 2 inches longer than the average woman, big waist and hips not significantly larger than the waist. Plus very high close fitting neck (to hide the adam's apple?)
Lovely 100% wool though and it's getting towards winter so I persevered. Sadly I didn't think to take a 'before' picture but I might post an 'after' as I was quite pleased with how it turned out

Don't have a photo, but here is a drawing of what it looked like on me before - the tongue is hanging out because the collar/neck was so tight it was literally strangling me



I think it's an early 1980s number from the cut. In a beautifully soft 100%, or near 100%, wool (as evidenced by moth damage :mad: ). No price label alas, but this means it was probably a 5p job from one of those old-school charity shops
No shop or factory labels at all and a lot of hand finishing but also some finishing of seam allowances with an overlocker which weren't readily available to the home sewer back then so I think this was made specially for someone by a professional dressmaker. They'd matched up the plaid pattern at the waistline appallingly though.

As well as the fitting oddities quoted above, the sleeves were also over-long, the nipple-to-nipple ( ) distance very wide and, despite the skirt being flared, the skirt lining was skin tight like a pencil/hobble skirt and impossible to walk in properly. I'm now more convinced than ever that this was made for a tranny - the tight skirt lining was a favourite trick to help remind them to take small lady-steps rather than big man-strides (go on - ask me how I know so much about dressing trannies )

This is how it turned out:



It was a bit of a mare getting it to fit my body shape but the perseverence paid off in the end.
Had to detach the sleeves, shorten/narrow the shoulders & back then re-attach. Then detached the skirt, shortened the bodice by a good two inches, added in extra bodice darts (this time pointing at the correct nipple placement area ) to shape the bust and take in the waist.

My neck is short and quite thick so the existing stand-up collar looked awful on me as well as being too tight. I usually go for scoop necks as they are more flattering to short necks but it's a winter dress so I didn't want the neck too low. Decided to go for a wide boat neck in the end with a slight scoop to it. Didn't bother with drafting a facing - just used an odd bit of wide dark green satin bias binding I had in my stash.

Machine-darned a load of moth holes in the skirt - difficult, as a lot of them occurred where all three colours crossed so had a go at mimicking the plaid with three different colour threads. Not perfect but they don't show if you're not looking for them. Some of the holes were not that tiny so I 'wonderwebbed' some old scraps of tulle net on the wrong side then darned over it.




Cut out a couple of triangles from some scraps of lining fabric in my stash and sewed into the side seams to make the skirt lining a more sensible shape. Re-attached the skirt - correcting the mis-matched plaid would have meant opening out and re-distributing all the pleats which were stitched down for the first 9 inches of the skirt so I decided to live with it

Decided it looked a bit boring so added three rows of machine embroidered scallops in cream, red and grey at neckline, cuffs and skirt hem.




Ta-Dah!
Very pleased with it - wore it to the pub last night - toasty warm, and got a few compliments too (from women, which are always worth more )

THIS is my current project.
An unbelievably nasty velour old lady nightdress - remember the ones your gran used to wear around the house at bedtime with zip-up sheepskin bootees



This one is just below knee length - probably the most unflattering length there is as it falls just on the widest part of the calves, and has a yoke, a plastic button & loop at the high (and tight) neck and a zip down the front. Sexy!

However, it is lovely and warm, and the yoke suggests medieval things to me so I'm going to make it into a tunic dress to wear over shirt, leggings and boots - Principle Boy style.
Will keep you posted on how it turns out.

OK, I've popped the thread's cherry - hope some others will post their triumphs (and disasters ) now.....

parsniphead

That's a lovely, sexy nightie. I can't see why you're changing it;):p.

I have some time alone this morning so want to spend some time on my machine. I just need to get the housework done before taking the little one to nursery.

Rose_Wood

Here is the swimming robe I made today for my 4 year old grand daughter out of an old bath towel. The bands had shrunk so I cut the puckered ends off and used them to lengthen the robe once I'd sewn it up. The bits I'd cut off to make the sleeves were turned into a belt and pockets and I edged it with a left over piece of sheet I'd bought from a charity shop to use for another project last year. It should fit her for a few years I hope. I didn't use a pattern just cut it out and hoped for the best but I think it looks ok.

Rose