Laced Collar Dress before Revamp

We couldn't believe this find at St Vinnies Paddington. Loved the lacy collar. Trouble was again.... it was about 4 sizes too big and had really wide and puffy shoulders. It has been a while since this revamp so am going by memory but I think the bulk of the size was reduced by stitching in a back seam and re-stitching the seam opening after unstitching the facing at the back and resizing the facing to the new dress size. The facing was reattached and the new neck opening restitched with the old loop stitched back in to the facing.

The bodice was unpicked from the waist seam and was shortened about three inches. Then it was reattached to the skirt section of the dress. The cap of the puffy sleeves was stitched in about 3 cms so the sleeves would sit better and this helped to slightly shorten the sleeve length as well. Then the dress was hemmed to mid-thigh length.

Summer Print Dress Before Revamp

Zoe came home with this dress after a weekend away. She loved the colour and print and figured yours truly could do something with it. It was a size 20 and needed to be majorly resized. I just ran the two side seams in right through the sleeves (as they needed to be narrowed as well). This saved removing the sleeves and re-attaching them (I would normally do this, but could get away with stitching all the way through the sleeves because the material was so soft). I also stitched in the back seam and re-folded down the opening at the neck. I re-attached the little button loop and the button. The bodice was cut off and the waist seam was moved up. Then thin elastic was stretched and stitched onto the waitst seam to give the dress some definition (it was a little tight, so needs to be unpicked and done again).

Summer print dress After Revamp

Before revamp, this was the floral dress that was a Size 20. The side seams and back seam were taken in. The waist seam was moved higher and elastic was stitched in at the waist. (We aren't happy with how tight the elastic is, so this has to be unpicked and redone). The hem was taken up and the sleeves were narrowed. This revamp took about an hour.

80's Blazer

This blazer was bought on e-bay for about $8 and thankfully didn't need any adjusting except for removing the shoulder pads.  It is worn with a $2 retro top and a neck-tie made with offcuts from one of our revamps.

Blue 'Madeline' dress after Revamp

If you remember the 'Revamping retro clothes can be addictive!' post.... the blue dress in that photo waited a long time to be revamped.  Well here is the finished product.  Even though the original looked great on the hanger, there is no way my daughter would wear a calf length dress with a split that went to mid thigh.  Also, the skirt section of the dress was far too tight for her.  But she loved the style with the white collar so it had to be revamped.  The top of the dress fit her well as it was a size 12 so nothing had to be changed there.  With the bottom half I sewed a seam where the split was.  Then I separated the dress at the waist seam.  The top section of the skirt (where it was too tight) was cut off (this naturally shortened the skirt also) and it was re-attached to the bodice section.  The dress looked rather plain and seemed to need something to give it a bit of 'interest'.  I think this was because it is such a plain blue dress.  So it was unpicked (my 'quick unpick' gets used a lot!) and I made a band with the extra material.  The top and skirt were attached to the band (a row of basting was needed on the top of the skirt to gather in the fullness).  My daughter loved the finished product and it also looks great with a jacket and brooch so can be worn in all seasons.

Retro Jacket before Revamp

I found this jacket at a church fete in a 'fill a box for $1' section. I didn't know if my daughter would like it, but I figured at that price 'who cares!' Well she loved it but again it was huge on her. This revamp took a bit to do but was worth it in the end. The jacket was lined, but the lining wasn't stitched down at the hem. So I went under the lining to do all the adjustments. First I stitched the sleeve caps in about 2 centimetres as the sleeves were far too wide (removed the shoulder pads first). Then I unpicked the neck facing (only a few centimetres on both sides of the back seam - no need to unpick the whole facing) so that I could sew in about 2 - 3 centimetres on the centre back seam to make the jacket a smaller size. Then I stitched in the same amount on the facing so that it would fit back on the smaller neckline and then stitched the facing back on.

Retro Jacket after Revamp

The jacket was too long and needed to be shortened however, there were deep pockets that hung right down to the hem. I stitched the opening of the pockets closed so that I could cut the jacket off right through where the pockets hung. I hemmed the bottom after opening out the facing. Then stitched the bottom of the facing back onto the jacket. The jacket was still a little baggy in the front, so I stitched in the princess lines about 1 or 2 centimeters. And voile! A one of a kind jacket that looks great with pants or a skirt.