Upcycling #1

I grabbed all of the skirts in my closet that I have not worn for a year and decided I would use them as skirts for more loose pull-over dresses.

And then they sat in a box in my sewing room for a few weeks.

Chip said it made a great cat bed.

Two days ago I made myself cut out the bodice pieces for one, and yesterday I started sewing it, using the "sew one seam, go do something else for fifteen minutes" method.  I got the bodice assembled and picked apart sections of the skirt side seams to insert pockets yesterday, and early this afternoon finished.

Yes, it's another fake Burda 6401, with a skirt variation because, as mentioned above, it was a thrifted skirt so I didn't make the decisions involved in sewing it.

Yes, I know, such a cheerfully summery frock!

And so easy to photograph

What this picture was attempting to capture is how I couldn't be bothered to get the sleeve caps set in perfectly smoothly--after two attempts on each shoulder, I said "good enough" and left them with very small tucks.  We all know that's Not Good Craftsmanship, but...enh, it's still probably better than a commercially-made garment would be.

The improvised inserted-after-the-fact pockets have openings that are a little small, but that's better than no pockets, yeah?

The skirt had weird side seams--one side had a shorter seam allowance with a raw edge that was encased in the other, wider seam allowance...kinda like a flat-felled seam, but without the seam allowance deal stitched down.  And the other side seam was not a seam at all, but instead a fold stitched to look like a seam from the outside.   I picked both of those apart on the second highest tier of the skirt, reinforced the stitching, created even seam allowances, and sewed the pocket bags to those.  Not pretty!  But: pockets.

I cut the sleeve bands on the bias and interfaced them with fusible, which may have cancelled out the bias stretch?

And I pressed the sleeve bands before they were attached, so they could probably stand to be pressed again now that they are attached.  We all know I probably won't.

And of course there was absolutely no chance that these two fabrics would be the same shade of black

but I think they're pretty close, to the point where I can convince myself it's more a difference of texture than shade. (And now we acknowledge the cat hair.)

We'll see how they look after being washed a few times.