Saturday, October 15, 2011

Liberty & Country Road Refashion & Giveaway Winner

One thing you may not know about me is that I'm a bit of an op-shopper. I quite like rifling through op-shops on one condition - that they're small. I like the ones where I can browse the entire women's clothing section in under 10 minutes. I used to head to my favourite one weekly. Nowadays though, it's only every few months, which suits me fine given my sewing output has increased. After all, there's a limit to how many clothes a girl needs.

Liberty Refashion

Anyway, a few weeks ago I was heading to the butcher while umming and arrring  in my head whether or not to duck into Vinnies. I decided that I'd give it a miss. So self-disiplined! As I was walking past however, I glanced up at the window. There, in all it's watermelon-coloured glory was a blouse made from Liberty fabric. I recognised the print straightaway. I also remembered that Sportscraft has released tops in this print last summer. I went in to investigate. It was a size 18 blouse in Liberty by Sportscraft and all for the sweet price of $5. Score!

I brought it home and transformed it into this little number. I used my shell top toile to recut the shape. I removed the buttons, swapped the sides and sewed up the CF, adding a little fold to mirror the existing fold (You might need to enlarge the photo or squint to see it). I used bias binding for the armholes (using this method from my tutorial) and cut a neck facing out of some scraps of watermelon coloured voile. Ain't she lovely!

- Worn with Elk swallow brooch -

- Paired with silk satin skirt blogged about here -

- before shot -
Country Road Refashion

I picked up this Country Road blouse for $5 also. It's made from ramie and has interesting cotton lace type stuff on the front. I've had this one since last year and had never worn it. Every time I put it on, the sleeves just seemed too oversized for my taste. It made me feel all a bit dowdy/frumpy. I'm guessing the previous owner had the same experience because it was in new condition. Anyway, this top made it to my throw-out pile the other day. However, after a bit of thought, I decided to chop the sleeves off and give it a second chance. This top has a 10cm hem, which I must say is quite a nice feature.


 - before shot -

Giveaway Winner

The winner of my antique fabric giveaway was:


Congratulations! Please email me with your details.
pbgubby at spin dot net dot au

Oh yeah...my children have a few more parties to attend this weekend so I've whipped up a few more pencil rolls. I have been busy, haven't I!

11 comments:

  1. Love your clothing refashioning, awesome. I admit to loving a good op shop trawl every now and then too.
    Anne xx

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  2. Nice! I think re-fashions are even harder than sewing from scratch.

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  3. Double score! Love both of the tops

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  4. You have been busy! I thought that was Liberty when I saw it on the bias binding post. Love the refashions.

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  5. Great refashions. I also love your brooch. I collect Elk jewellery. The only brooch I have is the Beehive.

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  6. Wonderful blouses! I especially love the Liberty - great score!

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  7. Ooh, how exciting for me! I have emailed you.
    I love your new sleeveless tops, a vast improvement on the originals. How come my local opshop never has liberty or country road? I will have to aquire some neighbours with more upmarket clothing taste :)

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  8. I love your tops so much! I could just live in outfits like that except for...oh yeah it's not 30 degrees here darn it lol. They are so,so gorgeous. Congrats on finding the Liberty. I bet your heart skipped a beat :-)

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  9. Fabulous transformations - well done! And I love those pencil rolls too. Congrats to kbenco!

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  10. Fabulous work! I have that Country Road top, it's been worn to death despite the fact that the sleeves were a bugger to iron!!!!

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  11. Ramie is from the stem of the linen plant. Itchy as hell at first and then washes up a lot softer the more you wash it!

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