Some Rehab

Me-Made-May generates the urge to rehab old clothes, for me. I've learned through social media that I am not alone. Here are a few of my recent rehab projects.

First up is this San Diego shirt. The pattern is from the Sewing Workshop (TSW), of course. The fabric is a wonderful silk-linen blend that I bought at Textile Fabric in Nashville TN many years ago. I love this shirt but it tended to pull open across the bust line. The one button holds it closed and there is a wide placket that extends to just under my bust. You can just see the top-stitching on that placket.

I simply sewed a rectangle of top-stitching above the bottom of the placket up past the bust line. Voila! Problem solved. And it still slips over my head.

This next one was a little more complicated but the final fix was super simple. It's a Zen shirt (from Now and Zen by TSW) made in my one-and-only Liberty of London piece of fabric. Zen is the one with the double collar.

The day I made this, I wanted to try to imitate the placket and cuff on David Coffin's book cover.

Unlike Coffin's lovely shear linen shirt, mine renders all that work invisible. More importantly I miscalculated the length of the sleeves and they were always too long. That's not a problem I usually have and it's not immediately obvious how to fix it without re-cutting the sleeve.

My first thought was to fold up a pleat or two above the placket before reattaching the under cuff. Since it is full-on summer here in Atlanta, I changed my mind. I cut off the plackets, gathered the sleeves onto a simple cuff.

For the new cuff, I used a cool Japanese remnant from a previous shirt, rather than the left-over cuff. Now the sleeves are 3/4 length.

I really like this slightly more feminine detail with such feminine fabric. And I balanced it a bit with the square on back.

Next was a white shirt made up in TSW's Liberty shirt. There were stains, probably tea.

I tried and tried to remove them to no avail.

The pin marks the top-most stain on the offending sleeve.

I brought this project with me to NH for a visit with DS and family. I knew I would have a good bit of free time. They let me set up a little work area in DS's guest room.

I had some remnants but none long enough for a new sleeve. If I cut and hemmed both sleeves at the place of the highest stain, then the sleeves would have been an awkward length. So I added these cuffs.

I can wear it with the cuffs down, but I prefer them up.

My original make included a self-drafted stand collar. It was always just a little too tall, especially for warm weather. So I opened up the top of the collar and shortened it about 1/2". You know, it's the little things...

I am quite happy with the result. I hope to wear this white blouse a few more times before I stain it with something else.

I have one more white shirt in need of rehab. I accidentally washed it with some red PJs that I had washed multiple times before. There was some free-floating dye and it attached in a number of places, staining more than one piece of the garment.

It's all across the shoulder, extending to the sleeve and front. This one will get dyed. Someday.

I also gave myself a little rehab.

Before

After. I'm too lazy today to apply make-up.