Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Blazers, Part IV

Hello, kiddies! I beat the sun home from work today and was able to take pics of the blazer-turned-skirt before it got dark. But let's start from the beginning, shall we? On Sunday, I showed you my jumping off point: a perfectly good, though slightly too large blazer. About halfway through my weight loss, I picked up this bad boy for about $10 at Tuesday Morning.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

It's a decent quality wool blend in a beautiful pale pink and chocolate brown herringbone weave. And believe it or not, I'm going to turn it into a skirt.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

I plan to reuse the peplum-ish pocket band, so I chopped that off first.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

Then I carefully disassembled the jacket, saving the sleeves (left and right), the top portion of the back (top center - upside down), and the top portions of the front lapels (bottom center - upside down). This layout is approximately how the pieces will be re-assembled in skirt form.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

I gave all my pieces a good press to get all those wrinkles out. And I removed the button from what was the left-hand front piece.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

I evened up the edge of the upper back piece, where the shoulders and collar used to be.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

Then I attached the upper back to the upper fronts with right sides together.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

I folded the upper back upward and top-stitched along my new seam. The former lapels are going to be my back slit in my new skirt.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

I trimmed off all the excess bits.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion
Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

I also chopped off the sleeve caps for a straight edge.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

Same layout as before, but now it's looking a little more like a potential skirt, isn't it?

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

Once the three pieces were joined into a tube, I tried it on inside out and pinned my side darts.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

With the main skirt complete, I needed a lining. I didn't really want to piece together the lining from the blazer the same way I did the skirt itself, so I grabbed a ghost of refashions past from my scrap pile. You may recognize this as the underskirt from the paler pink bridesmaid dress that went into my Cinderella costume.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

I removed the tulle layer and ironed out the wrinkles from the underskirt. I laid my tweed skirt-to-be on top and cut off the extra.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

Then I realized the skirt fabric has a bit of stretch and the lining fabric does not. So I spliced in a couple more inches to be safe.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

I stuck my inside-skirt into my right-side out lining and cut away a trapezoid where the slit is.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

I pressed the bottom edge upward all around, and pressed the facing of the slit upward the other direction. Then I flipped each corner of the slit inside-out and sewed the outer and facing together (and promptly moved on to the next step without taking a photo).

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

With quite a bit of finagling, I attached the trapezoidal cut-out around the edges of the slit facing.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

So it looked like this once flipped right-side-out again.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

A lot more finagling had to happen to attach the bottom edge of the lining to the bottom edge of skirt, so much so that I couldn't really even get a decent photo of it.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

But after sewing around the bottom edge, here it is all pretty and pressed.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

Then came the zipper installation. I had this burgundy zipper in my stash - not quite the right color, but close enough considering it will be hidden under the peplum. So I sandwiched it between my tweed and my lining and sewed it to the seam allowances.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

Then I top-stitched around the edges for a clean finish.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

Now my skirt is functional. Let's make it pretty! I removed the pocket flaps from my blazer peplum by opening up that seam and then sewing it back together without the flaps.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

The fabric just above the peplum will serve as my waistband, but the original darts made the fabric flare out a bit. So I picked out those seams and made them straight vertical.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

To make the waistband/peplum fit, I needed to trim off about three inches from each end.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

I flipped it inside out and re-sewed the ends.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

Right-side-out again and you can barely even tell!

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

I cut away the excess lining fabric and pressed the edge over.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

Then I folded over my new waistband and pressed again. I opened up the side seams a couple inches down. The center portion will be the waistband along the back side of my skirt, and the ends will be peplum flaps that fasten in the front. This way the peplum covers up the zipper without hindering the zipping and unzipping.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

For the front portion of the waistband, I grabbed the collar from my old blazer. I trimmed off the bottom a bit and pressed the edges inward.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion
Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

I pinned my front waistband and my peplum waistband to the skirt, inside-out.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

Once that was sewn, I folded them over and sewed around again, making sure to sew "in the ditch" on the peplum, so the stitching wouldn't be too visible.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

Last but not least, I hand-sewed on four hook-n-eyes, two per peplum flap.

Tweed Peplum Skirt Refashion

I can go casual...

Tweed Peplum Skirt - AfterTweed Peplum Skirt - AfterTweed Peplum Skirt - After

...or professional...

Tweed Peplum Skirt - AfterTweed Peplum Skirt - AfterTweed Peplum Skirt - After

...but not too professional.

Tweed Peplum Skirt - After

How's about a little closer look at that pepulm?

Tweed Peplum Skirt - After

And the back slit...

Tweed Peplum Skirt - After


Tweed Peplum Skirt - Before & After

28 comments:

  1. Carissa!!! Your thought process is just Amazing!!! This is definitely an interesting transformation!

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    1. Thanks, Linda! I had a lot of fun without this one, even with the doubts I'd have enough fabric and the trials and tribulations of attaching the lining and all that jazz.

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  2. I can't belive it ! It's amazing !!!

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  3. I am very impressed, Carissa! You have serious skills, cutting and splicing those various pieces together to construct a skirt. Great job! :)

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  4. I love your process on this! What a great transformation. Oh, it can be easier when lining a skirt, to leave them unattached at the hem - just hem the inner & outer separately, with the lining an inch or so shorter than the outer.

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    1. Yes, indeed, I have left the lining unattached at the bottom on skirts in the past, but this sort of loose weave herringbone was fraying like mad. I wanted to encase it all so I was constantly dropping bits of thread as I walked!

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  5. Pretty amazing, and I definitely didn't picture this. I was thinking more along the lines of using the peplum at the bottom of the skirt to make it flare out! But there probably wasn't enough material for that anyhow. I love the colours in the fabric.

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    1. Thanks! Walking would've been difficult had a put the peplum at the bottom. But I suppose I could've still done a slit and the ruffle would just have a break in it. That's one of the great things about refashioning - there are no right or wrong answers!

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  6. That.is.amazing!!!

    www.dressupnotdown.blogspot.com

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  7. Wow! You did a great job. I never would have come up with anything like this. Keep it up!

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  8. Wow..... you are my refashioning hero!

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  9. Replies
    1. I'm so glad you can look past its non-velvet-ness. :)

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  10. creativity at its best!!!!

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  11. wow. the execution of your idea is incredible!!

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    1. Thank you, Cari! Sometimes things come out exactly as I pictured them in my head. Of course, most of the time they don't, but this time? This time it worked out nicely.

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  12. Wow - it's an amazing transformation. I'm really impressed.

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  13. Wonderful transformation and Tute!
    I am thinking a nice re-cycled buckle or frog closure might be a nice attachment external closure for the peplum pockets. What do you think?

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    Replies
    1. I think that's an excellent idea! I'll have to keep an eye out for the right buckle-type thing on my thrifting adventures. Thanks!

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  14. Niice. You are very talented. Thank you for sharing.

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