Altered an Oldie But Goodie - No. 2

I said in my last post where I altered a shirt that I would be redoing more pieces in my wardrobe. There's so much initial work in them and the style still works in my wardrobe so I'm loath to donate them.  This is one of them...

I made this Myosotis dress back in 2018.  It was the second one I made. As you can see because I was still using the original pattern details.

This is the dress now...

There were two challenges with it.  The bust and the sleeves both were tight. I took the dress apart and loosened the side seams on the bodice. It gave me an additional inch and a quarter. 

Then I recut the skirt taking off 17" to make it more tunic like. 

I remade the sleeves using the top of the remaining fabric from the skirt. The original sleeves had white topstitching on them to echo the white topstitching on the bodice front. I omitted that this time.

Otherwise, it was a one day project. I tore it apart watching a movie Friday evening and put it back together Saturday afternoon.

A Few Photos of it now ~

However, after taking these pictures, I will not be wearing this out and about.  It will be a house top. While I made the sleeves larger and shortened the skirt, there just wasn't enough fabric to widen the bodice and it's so obviously pulling in the front and back. I may yet use the embroidered piece to make shorts for the granddaughters. It was a good effort to salvage this top but it's not quite there...

...as always more later!

Altered an Oldie but Goodie

I made this shirt back in April 2017 and if you look closely at the pictures, it's quite large on me.  This was back when I lost 35+ pounds and was still learning how to sew for a slimmer me.

Then

Now

Fast forward 5 years and I've gained back the 35 pounds plus some. But this is not a woe is me post. I love the me that I am right now especially since I'm living through a pandemic, the possibility of WW3, had some health challenges and I'm still standing. 

As you know I'm back to work in my office several days a week.  So I've been going through my shirt collection to see which ones still work for my body now. What I found is that all of the shirts with the back yoke and gathered lower back still fit fine.  It's the sleeves that don't fit. I've been going through choosing which ones to alter and which to donate.

To me this designer inspired shirt just needed new sleeves. I didn't want to lose the lacy effect of the original sleeves so I replaced them with full lace sleeves.  The lace of course came from the vast collection of fabric in the Resource Center. I actually had three pieces to choose from and went with the floral lace because you know stripes and floral lace. I love it when I can update a garment and definitely need to do more of that this year!

After prepping the sleeves, I tried the shirt on and while it fits, I wanted an even more relaxed fit. So I took the time to alter all of the seams on the shirt to give me another 1.5" of room.  I'm glad I reworked the shirt because I'm much happier with it now. It's going into the work garments rotation soon.

A few updated photos...

I have another two shirts that I want to make revisions to also.  They will be done as the spirit moves.  I want to save anything I've already created because so much time and effort went into making them.  Not everything should go into the donation pile, right?!

So do you save, recycle or donate?  Just wondering...

...as always more later!