REduce, REuse, REFASHION!

I was really excited that there would be a refashion challenge for this season of Project Run & Play.  I love refashioning, and it was with a refashion project that I won the sewalong in Season 6.  Sometimes I look through my stash of refashion targets and figure out a project from those, and sometimes I’m inspired by something else which was the case in this instance.  I saw this picture from Shabby Apple in my Instagram feed and immediately loved the combination of a floaty skirt and moto jacket!

Then it was a matter of finding materials that would work together to realize my inspiration.  A striped knit shirt my Mom had given me that was just a little too boxy for my taste, a crepe skirt of mine that I loved but sadly no longer worked with my post-children body, a bias-cut top of mine that was an unfortunate color choice with my skin tone, a thrifted men’s rib knit sweater, and some leather I salvaged from my sofa rehab a couple of months ago.

Arden giving off her best tough girl attitude.

I pieced the front of the shirt and carefully matched up the stripes.  The front neckline is salvaged from the hem of the original shirt.  I added the shoulder zips for a fun accent – they function but it isn’t necessary to open them to get the shirt over her head.

The jacket.  Oh, I want one of these for me, but I don’t think I can eek it out of the leather I have remaining.  The whole reason I needed to reupholster the sofa cushions was because they were in such rough shape, so I only had one piece that was wider than 8″.  I used the one large piece to make the larger right panel and then all the other sections are small enough to work with the narrow leather and I pieced the back.  I’d like to take a moment to sing the praises of my Janome for tackling multiple layers of leather like a champ!  I used upholstery thread left over from the sofa project and that worked well for this.  A separating gold metal zip to close the jacket brings the look together.

The lining is a linen shirt of hubby Dave’s.  I broke out my walking foot and some remnants of warm & natural batting I had left over from past projects and quilted a diamond pattern to the lining pieces before sewing it together.  I salvaged the pocket from the shirt and put it as an interior pocket.  I would have preferred to have the leather come up into the lining side, but the thickness of the leather posed a problem and turn and topstitch seemed like the best solution.

I made a leather bow and slid it onto a sparkly gold headband that perfectly matched the trim from the dress and the zippers.

Happy dance!

I don’t have any shots of the bloopers from this shoot, but instead a story.  Arden will do photo shoots for a promise of a treat afterwards, and there’s a cupcake shop just up the road.  So I started trying to take pictures and Hadley did not want to stay out of the shots.  The owner of the showroom came out and asked if she could have a cookie; he had a whole bag from the nearby Double tree.  (Have you had a Doubletree cookie?  They’re to. die. for!)  So I sat Hadley in a corner on my coat, just to the right of the creme Buick Roadmaster you see above.  She sat there eating a gigantic chocolate chip cookie like a happy camper for about 15 minutes.  Photo shoot saved!  She had a chocolate ring around her mouth and if I had even one shot left on my SD card I would have taken one – priceless!

Now I need to remember to have something to occupy my “assistant” when she’s along…