I Do Not Do Alterations

 It's taken me about 6 months to shorten a couple of pairs of floaty chiffon trousers for my mum.  They were horrid to work with and I'm still not sure they're short enough until I see her to try them on.  More recently she produced this top with weird sleeves for me to cut up and use as I please.

Instead, I've transformed it into something wearable with a simple alteration.  I cut it straight down the grain from the armhole seam and across the grain for the sleeve hem.  It was horrid to sew but I managed a pretty neat job on the outside.
 

One doesn't need to be a genius to realise that many more of this particular top would sell (to ladies of a certain age) with the plain short sleeves and they'd be cheaper to produce with a lot less fabric too.  Fashion often prevails over commen sense but is this really "fashion"?  In any case, perhaps my "show and tell" will encourage somebody somewhere to refashion/upcycle something that a simple alteration would make usable.


I want to create creative things but there's lots of more mundane stuff that require doing and finishing right now.  Before I settled on the bedding in the previous post, I ordered this nautical set from Laura Ashley.  It was absolute rubbish ......... really thin.  Acceptable for quilting maybe but not a duvet cover.  The co-ordinating gingham sheet was so thin I could envisage a foot going through it within a week!  No problem (apart from the cost to send it back!) except that I purchased some matching (used but very good conditon) matching curtains.  Ok, well I can get my money's worth out of them by cutting them up and using them for other things.  This blind needs finishing (is it really a whole year since the I pieced it together?).

I was going to put the pic up again but can't save it from blogger to the laptop - something to do with Google Chrome (we use Firefox) and a script stopped working it says.  Blogger just doesn't want to be my friend any more.  I click on links to blogs either via google, my blog, from other blogs etc. and they flash up for a split second before reverting to a blank page.  I can't comment on many blogs except, and that's only sometimes, to reply to somebody elses comment and then I can't get back to the comments to see what else has been written.  Sometimes I even get the blog doesn't exist (or something to that effect) but then I can find it later ............. it is very frustrating and I really don't know how to get things back to normal ............. clearing cookies, ad and virus scans all good this end.


Going back to the Laura Ashley stuff, I cut the blackout lining from the curtains yesterday (perfect for backing the blind), put it in the washing machine on a very gentle 45min wash ............... and the backing disintegrated into bits!!!  The label did say "dryclean only" (and "made in China") but I've washed this kind of stuff plenty of times before so either it's very substandard or been affected by hanging in the sun but, saying that, I've had this kind of lining in south facing windows before and it's washed no problem.  There's so many blobs everywhere it looks like it's been snowing beneath the washing line!!!!!


Am now going to see if any of it is salvageable before I cut up anything else ...........


Not quite sure who won the cushion fight Diane, daughter thinks she did because a) she has two and b) her square one is much plumper!  She is right about the plumpness - two cushion pads of the same size from Ikea and one is much plumper than the other ...... you can't tell when they're purchased rolled up tightly in bags ........ but the buttonholes are much nicer on the blue one now I know what I'm doing on the Juki or, more to the point, allowing the machine to do it rather than interfere because I didn't have faith that the machine would actually do it automatically so to speak lol!

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