Maxi dress to Agnes top refashion

Refashion. Now there's a word you don't see very often on this blog. Sadly, I'm not one of those people who can take a voluminous grandma dress and instantly transform it into a trench coat... or a jumpsuit...or a pair of shoes... When the Great British Sewing Bee was on TV, I'd still be pondering what to make for the refashion challenge days later, whilst the poor contestants generally had about ninety minutes. Let's just say I'm not a natural.

Very occasionally though, a garment will fall into my hands that's crying out to be turned into something else. This happened recently when I was sorting out my wardrobe and came across this maxi dress. All I could think about was how much better it would look as a T shirt!

It's a perfectly nice dress, but I haven't worn a maxi since I was a child in the seventies (most people seemed to be in possession of one for parties), they're just not a style I feel comfortable wearing. My friend gave it to me a couple of years ago (I think she'd bought two by mistake on eBay) and despite good intentions, it's never been worn. The fabric is a stretchy chevron jersey with a nice drape and because it's full length, there's plenty of it, so I decided to see if I could turn it into a simple fitted T shirt that would get worn. The pattern I used was the Agnes top by Tilly and the Buttons.

First off I removed the weirdly short empire line bodice, which gave me enough uninterrupted fabric from the long skirt section to play with. There was just enough to cut out a front, back, short sleeves and neckband. I kept the original hem and made sure the downward point of the chevron was directly on the fold when I was cutting it out, so it was centred. I also spent a bit of time trying to incorporate the ruched neckline, but the effect was completely lost amongst the chevrons, so I removed it.

I wanted this version to be a tighter fit than my first version, so cut a size 4 all over, grading out to a size 5 at the bust. I think the fit is just right and I now have a go-to T shirt pattern that I can use again and again, yay!

I'm delighted with the finished top, it's exactly how I envisaged it, and so wearable too! It works really well with jeans and I can also see myself pairing it with skirts (see above!) and shorts in the summer. I could have taken the dress to the charity shop and somebody would probably have snapped it up, but I'm glad I didn't. I'd have missed out on making this cute little top if I had!  x

Girl Charlee ginghams

I'm sure you're aware by now that Girl Charlee recently set up a UK branch and have been spreading the word about their awesome knit fabrics throughout the land. They contacted me a while back to see if I'd like to try out something from their range and I was more than happy to oblige! 

They have a really interesting selection to choose from, including some lovely ponte de roma knits and cotton jerseys. I finally settled on two of their cotton jersey gingham prints in Paloma Grey and Classic Blue. I chose gingham as it's midway between a solid colour and a busy pattern, plus it's a nice change from stripes. My original inspiration was this picture of a simple Diane Von Furstenberg top from my Gingham Pinterest board, not the matching shorts though!

I decided to pair the fabric with the Tilly and the Buttons Agnes top, which Tilly very kindly gifted me when it was first released. 

The fabric is a nice quality cotton T-shirt fabric from the Modern Air Collection. It has 25% stretch and good recovery and the cotton content gives it a bit of stability so it doesn't misbehave and curl up all over the place. It's also quite wide (142cm), so I only needed a metre to make the top.

I chose the plain neckline and arm options - I thought the ruched neckline would get a bit lost amidst all that gingham and ruched arms are just not really my style. Based on reviewer feedback on the tight fit of this pattern, I cut a size 5 all over, which is one size larger than I'd usually sew for a TATB pattern. This was deliberate - the Agnes top is designed to be very close fitting but I didn't want mine to turn out absolutely skin tight and look like a leotard! The fit wasn't bad, but I needed to make a few tweaks to the hips and shoulders, next time I'll grade down to a size 4 in both those areas. Once I'd cut the fabric out, it only took me one episode of Desert Island Discs to sew it up on the overlocker. I then changed to my regular sewing machine and finished the neckband, sleeves and hem with a double needle. I took 2cms off the length of the full length sleeves (T-Rex arms) and that was it!

But let's back peddle a bit, at the beginning of this post I mentioned that I'd received two gingham prints -  grey and royal blue - so what did I do with the grey? Well I actually had the same intention for the grey gingham, which was to make an Agnes top. At the eleventh hour though, I rashly decided to abandon my original plan and make an Agnes dress instead (with 1.5m I had just enough fabric). I used this tutorial from Tilly's blog to make it, but used the half circle skirt from the Lady Skater dress instead of the gathered rectangle from the tutorial.

The colour of the grey gingham is lighter than this in real life

Alas, once I'd sewn it up, I realised it was very much a summer dress - I think this was because of the colour. I chose the grey because it looked like charcoal grey on the website, whereas in reality it has a much lighter tone, more like a dove grey. And when seen as a whole dress (rather than a top), it was just far too light and summery to wear in autumn. So I've decided to save it for next summer instead - I haven't finished the hem and the arms yet, so I may well end up making it short sleeved. For what it's worth, the Classic Blue gingham is exactly the colour as it appears on the website - a bright, royal blue.

So I did get two garments out of my fabric in the end: one to wear now and one to save for next summer. I really like the top - it's already proving useful in this in-between weather. It's a close fit, but still comfortable and the cotton jersey feels lovely to wear. I've worn it a few times already - with jeans (see above) and with a cardigan and red denim skirt.

If you'd like to try out some Girl Charlee fabric of your own then you're in luck as they're very generously offering one winner two metres of their choice of fabric!  Hoorah! To enter, simply leave a comment on this post telling me which Girl Charlee fabric you'd choose if you're the winner. The full range can be found in their online shop here. The giveaway is open worldwide and closes at midnight GMT on Sunday 4th October. The winner will be chosen at random. Please make sure you leave your email address if it's not linked to your Blogger profile so I can contact you if you're the winner.

Fabric was given to me free of charge for review. All views my own.