going away outfit

Posted on by trish

So, when we were plan­ning our wed­ding 7 years ago I learned of this term, “going away out­fit”. It’s sup­posed to be the out­fit that the bride changes into when the cou­ple leaves the recep­tion to go on their hon­ey­moon (at least that’s what I heard).

I nev­er had any dress change dur­ing my wed­ding, let alone a going away out­fit. But sum­mer trips are also great oppor­tu­ni­ties to make new clothes! Last year I made a new shirt for our trip to Chicago.

And so this year I thought I’d make a new shirt too. Brings new mean­ing to the idea of a “going away out­fit”. The new shirt is made from a thrift­ed shirt from Black Mar­ket. There was this whole lot of them and they looked brand new. Over­stock that’s been sit­ting in some base­ment for years, I guess? They all fea­tured exag­ger­at­ed pointy col­lar. I think it’s a love­ly shirt, the pointy col­lar is quirky, my friend bought the same shirt and she looks super fab­u­lous in it. It just… did­n’t look like some­thing I would wear. But I LOVE the print.

So I removed the col­lar, cut the sleeves short, took in the sides a bit, and hemmed the neck and sleeve edges. Bet­ter, isn’t it?

black market

I’m even able to pre­serve the pock­et! And I love its length. Here’s a clos­er look at the love­ly print.

black market 2

But next time I’ve real­ly got to mea­sure. I cut away too much fab­ric around the sleeves and it almost did­n’t fit, had to reduce the seam allowance to 1/4″ (>_<) I’ve real­ly got to mea­sure from now on…

These shirts were 5 bucks each! Maybe I should get a cou­ple more with dif­fer­ent prints…

SO! Where are we going, you ask? Que­bec! Haven’t been there since my fam­i­ly took a bus tour there when I was a kid. Can’t wait to see it again with new eyes. Will be post­ing pic­tures when we’re back, of course!

Wish­ing you a fab­u­lous week with fun and inspir­ing adven­tures, wher­ev­er you are :)

 

29 thoughts on “going away outfit”

  5. I real­ly love this blouse redesign! You did a won­der­ful job and it’s mak­ing me take a look at thrift­ed cloth­ing in a dif­fer­ent way. :)

  8. Thanks so much for vis­it­ing, Vida! I did­n’t write a tuto­r­i­al for this, but plan­ning on refash­ion­ing anoth­er one of these shirts (dif­fer­ent print :D), so I might write a tuto­r­i­al when I start work­ing on that, since there seems to be quite a bit of interest!

  9. I love your updat­ed shirt. Sure will give this a try. I love thrift­ing, now I have some­thing new to hunt :)! A tuto­r­i­al would be great.
    Thanks

  11. Yes, this is a very cute top and it would be nice to have a tuto­r­i­al. You have inspired me to try to refash­ion one myself.
    I’ve found nice shirts in the thrift store and would like to have a dif­fer­ent top from them. Thank you for sharing. 

    Janet.

  12. thanks so much Janet! i’ve been plan­ning to write a tuto­r­i­al, but haven’t been sewing much this sum­mer and focus­ing on knit­ting instead… i do still plan on refash­ion­ing the oth­er shirt i have some­times soon… will keep you post­ed! :D

  13. Pingback: Obsessing Over | Arrow & Ash
  16. Pingback: The woman suit | thrift winnipeg

  17. Thank you for this love­ly idea. Now I have a ques­tion. Can you serge a sweater if you cut it down to redesign it some­how. Been think­ing about this late­ly… and to add cro­cheted trim.
    Thank you again.…the idea is awesome.

  19. I have my own silk big shirts. And I will use your idea and add a chain belt around the waist. They were bare­ly worn and I kept them. As the fab­rics are beau­ti­ful …you know the era, shoul­der pads. Thx!

  20. I have re fash­ioned sweaters with­out a serg­er. Used a wide zig zag stitch with longer stitch. I call it a run­ning zig zag. After stitch­ing the seam, i use a reg­u­lar zig zag to pre­vent rav­el. I hold it so the seam fin­ish does not stretch. Have made hats and mit­tens from old sweaters.

  23. Hi there! I love the shirt redesign. I’m won­der­ing how you hemmed the neck? Did you do it lit­tle by lit­tle, sort of puck­er­ing the fab­ric slight­ly as you go, or is there some fan­cy way to hem a neck­line where it lies flat? Thanks so much for sharing!!

  24. Thanks for vis­it­ing, Alex! I just rolled the hem lit­tle by lit­tle, and yes, the fab­ric would puck­er slight­ly as I roll it. I do pin it down before sewing it with the machine. Hope this helps!

  25. I love your cute blouse trish. I’ve done a few of these because of love­ly fab­rics and it’s fun to get to sew only the fun area, hav­ing all the bor­ing, basic stitch­ing done already. I know this is a very old post, but hope­ful­ly will still help oth­ers. It is in no way a crit­i­cism of trish’s work, it’s just dif­fer­ent. Each of us finds our own method when you do some­thing enough times. Depend­ing on the fab­ric, I’ve had to redo trish’s method because of all I did­n’t know, even though in my imag­i­na­tion it was very love­ly and per­fect in every way! Lol

    Remem­ber, the sharp­er the curve on a neck­line, the more puck­er­ing there will be through the curves! This method­has worked for me but I gen­er­al­ly like a more fin­ished look. Hav­ing a moth­er who was a design­er and pro­fes­sion­al, I was taught well. But she also used shortcuts. 

    Neck­line could be faced with nar­row bias tape, remem­ber­ing to cut small slits in the curved seam allowance areas of bias tape up to, but not into the stitch­ing, allow­ing you to ‘slight­ly’ stretch the fab­ric in curved area when sewing, eas­ing out any puck­er­ing. On right side,stitch in the ditch to keep fab­ric flat when fin­ished. Under­neath, pin, then stitch bias tape to blouse so you don’t have raw bias tape edge. If you choose trish’s method, sew a few bast­ing stitch­es thru the curved area of neck­line only, on seam line (to remove soon),depending onfab­ric. Cut small slits up to stitch­ing, as above, gen­tly stretch­ing as you sew curved neck­line seam. Remove bast­ing stitch­es. Hope­ful­ly, you have now elim­i­nat­ed as much puck­er­ing as pos­si­ble. If you have a loos­er woven fab­ric, this may not be a prob­lem and you saved your­self all this com­pen­sat­ing for the lack of stretch in woven fab­rics. I hope this is clear. Try your method on scrap fab­ric first for eas­ing thru the curved area so you won’t ruin your pret­ty blouse and to give you con­fi­dence enough to try it. :) Hap­py sewing. Got­ta love upcycling!

  27. I was try­ing to think of ways to make some cute spring and sum­mer tops. This has help spark my cre­ative juices. I real­ly like the fin­ished product

  29. Pingback: Up-cycling: Clothing • • Make Ad Lib

Comments are closed.