Ribbons and Bows: Making a Wardrobe

I made a good dent in refashioning and creating my wardrobe over the past week or so.

Plain Jane Jacket to Ruffle Dream Coat


About a year ago I found a plain ankle length jacket in a microfiber suede material. It was way too large and for a whopping $0.96 I took it home as reclaimed fabric.

I took off the standard men's shirt type collar, the cuffs, the arms and chopped it at the waist. The part of the collar that joins the collar to the coat became the ruffled cuffs with a simple pleat. I covered it in pink polka dot ribbon to finish off the seams ($3.29). I fit the sides from the armpit to the new empire waist to fit, and sewed the arms back in. The ruffle going from the collar to the empire waist is the 5 inch section I cut off to make it an empire, doubled over and pleated to make the ruffle.

I trimmed it out with the same ribbon. I chopped off another 10 inches from top of the bottom piece before reattaching it to make it knee length. I modified the button holes to accommodate the bigger buttons I wanted and sewed the buttons far to one side to make the opening asymmetric. I adore this new coat.







I had about 18 inches left over of ribbon so I made a little flower rosette pin with the leftover ribbon, a button and a little gold jewelery finding.




Hippy chic to Dancing Drama!
I had this old ankle length tiered skirt in the most luscious black velvet. However the volume involved in the skirt made it heavy. So out cane my handy seam ripper and 20 minutes later I have a new mid calf length skirt that I can still wear my knee hi socks without showing pale pasty winter legs plus an 11 foot strip of velvet for another project.




Hair things
I made a headband from some red heart super saver in my own design. The yarn was leftover from making my mom's birthday present.












Then I also made a fascinator using extra ribbons and beads and things around the house.



Can't be more Feminine Socks!
I finally finished these socks. The second pair in a pattern of my own design, I added ribbons to make them more girly and fun. I like being girly but sometimes I want to do it in a way that doesn't involve pink or purple. I'm really happy how these turned out especially since I had to frog the first one completely and redo it, so really I made three socks.

In my last post I mentioned my plans for 2009. I finished my victorian inspired ruffly coat and I have already crafted more than usual. I plan on sending the patterns for both the socks and headband into knitting magazines. We'll see how that goes.