Wardrobe S.O.S
I have been feeling a bit remiss in the clothing department lately (and too busy to make anything new) but as I’d cleared a bit of space around the sewing machine to finish the lavender bags today, I thought I might as well do something useful. Actually I had planned to make a hat, poor Boy Lacer is desperate for one and he is very difficult to hat shop for, but I realised I didn’t have everything I needed, so my attention was drawn to the mending pile and an hour or two later . . .
Left to right:
Girl Lacer’s second hand skirt from Monsoon – the mother-in-law manages a charity shop; she cherry picks the best bits out for her grandchildren (and of course pays for them). Girl Lacer had managed to rip the fabric around the draw string.
‘Tiered flouncy skirt’ aka ‘the hide your pale stubbly legs’ skirt – a now very old skirt from Next; this skirt did spend some time in the ‘to be ripped up’ pile a couple of summers ago, as I didn’t like it any more (I think I was planning on making bunting with it) but thankfully I didn’t and one day in desperation for lack of anything newish to wear, I started wearing it again and now I virtually live in it. When I first started wearing this skirt again I got loads of compliments from my friends, which is always nice. Anyway, when I discovered a hole in it this morning, thankfully I had on hand something I’d bought on a whim in John Lewis the other day, ‘clothes plasters’, they’re by the illustrator Jennie Maizels (who is more known in this household as the author of a rather good baby / toddler cookbook) and there is a variety of cute iron on patches, so I applied a cheshire cat.
You can’t see it in the photo above but I also repaired my ‘I only realised how much I missed it when I saw Del Boy’s wife wearing the exact same print in a trailer on UK Gold’ dress - it’s from Warehouse, I think last summer. It has ruffles at the bottom and part of it had become separated leaving a great big hole. I tell you, trying to accurately reattach gathered ruffles to match the rest of the dress, tricky.
‘Aunty Cookie’ T-shirt – there was nothing strictly wrong with this plain black t-shirt from M&S except it was a bit too plain and I just happened to have some Aunty Cookie (can’t see any listed at time of blogging) transfers laying around.
Applique octopus top – gorgeous isn’t it? And absolutely not done by me, it’s from Zara, a couple of years ago and one of the button eyes fell off almost immediately and I’ve only just got round to replacing it, me bad.
Girl Lacer’s red dress – this was an annoying have to fix, it’s a virtually new dress from Marks and Spencers, yet the strap had been put in so sloppily it snapped pretty quickly, so I had to fix that.
‘White Gap dress that is so soft and floaty it makes me feel like I’m doing the school run in my nightie’ - this is an even more annoying fix as this dress is only a few months old, yet the hem had completely unravelled, so I had to do it again.
‘The not quite finished Ikea cushion’ – this was bought a few months ago as part of a pair, it was only when this particular cushion was trundling along the conveyor belt after it’d been past the cashier, did I notice that they hadn’t even closed the hole left for stuffing, I know Ikea is meant to be a bit do it yourself, but that was pushing it!
‘The I must never ever do any more cleaning in brown ex-dress’ - this was a relatively new cheapie dress from the holiday wear section in M&S, I then made the mistake of cleaning the bathroom and got bleach stains on it, every time I wear brown that happens! However unlike the brown skirt I recently rescued from the same fate with a spot of applique, that wouldn’t have worked here, so I had to chop the bottom bit of the dress off. So lucky for me the dress was tiered and just by cutting at the tier above the bleach mark, I’ve ended up with quite a nice top I think and not even any hemming, thanks to the seam that was already there!
And finally on the bed post ‘Another ex-dress waiting for a new zip’ – another M&S dress, this one a maxi dress from last year which showed an unfortunate amount of cleavage, so I was thinking of converting this to a skirt anyway and then the zip broke and solved any dilemma for me!
It’s only when you teach yourself the often very basic skills of clothes repair do you realise a) how often shop bought clothes break or get ruined by other means and b) how many clothes you must have been throwing away before.
So I feel like I have a whole new wardrobe now, just in time for my new, also home made, hair.
(This time I went mad with the both the dye bottle and my dress making scissors!)
PS And that bit sticking out the side of my head is not a bit I missed!
