Sundress to Blouse Refashion

During my declutter I have come a cross a few things I had forgotten about. Some of it has been bits from charity shops bought for fabric very cheap and I have to say I have put some of these items back in the bag to go back as I will likely never use them.  However one dress I pulled out and wondered why I had never finished it.  It is a sundress and originally it had gold trim around the bodice and waist about 3cm deep, very bling, very tacky.  I remember carefully unpicking all of it so I could save the dress.

Well I might as well have not bothered as yesterday after staring at it for a while and concluding that I really want to do something different with it I decided on a blouse.  Now I didn't want a button through as the fabric is too busy for that, also it could have resembled a Hawaiian shirt. 

  

                             

A couple of months ago I made a long sleeved blouse that tied at the front and I have had lots of wear out of that one so far.  I chose to make a short sleeve version and although this fabric is a cotton I still think it works.

I had a little of this lace so I used it on the shoulders as a detail.

I cut around an existing  t-shirt for the basic shape but quite a bit bigger as it had to slide over my head, then I took it in as far as I comfortably could while still being able to pull it over my head without the need for any fastenings.

I had to cut some strips and face all the way around the neck and arms as the lace opens up really easily.  This was a bit of trial and error as I used a thin soft black ribbon at first but that rippled at the shoulder due to difference in stretchiness between the ribbon and the lace.  So I unpicked that folded strips of the cotton and did it that way.

I don't know if you can quite see in the picture above but I also had to add a little diagonal dart at each side of the neckline.  It wasn't quite sitting flat before but that seems to have done the trick.

I'm very happy with it and that is another new from old item saved from the worlds rubbish heap! I didn't have to buy any notions and it is completely pattern free.