Ready to Wear Remodelled

Do you ever buy ready-to-wear which isn't?

Sometimes I like a fabric (or combination of fabrics) or a style and purchase a garment knowing that I am going to alter it before I wear it. Or sometimes I wear a garment which confirms all my prejudices against it and has to be remodelled before it can be worn again.

Moochi Revel Tank
Loved the pattern on this silk fabric and the style. The small issue was the gaping around the armhole which was so bad you could almost see through to the other side.  Gaping around the armhole is a pet hate. I bought the top thinking it would be easy enough to purchase a plain white silk fabric and add sleeves to it.

Original Moochi Revel tank

Original top - side view

For this remake The Fabric Store excelled itself.  Whilst it was cotton and not silk the colour and weight of the fabric was perfect.

It was a very simple job to: remove the binding from the armhole; check the armhole size against my favourite woven armhole; and remove the excess across the shoulders (the set-in sleeve wasn't really suited to a drop shoulder look). I didn't need to remove depth from the armhole. Then I just cut two sleeves using my favourite woven sleeve pattern (and matches the armhole) from the cotton fabric.

Modified Moochi Revel top

Modified top - V back

Modified top - side front

Andrea Moore Lavish Shirt
I don't really like shirts.  The collar around my neck irritates me but I did love the colours and style of this shirt. I finally bought the shirt in the sale thinking the things I loved about it would outweigh it being a shirt.

This turned out not to be true and I spent much of the day tugging on the collar, even though I didn't fasten the top two buttons.

Lavish Shirt from AM website

I didn't think to take a picture of the shirt before remodelling but found a picture of the other colour-way on the Andrea Moore website.

The remodelling involved the: removal of the collar, under collar and button band, which were all in the chartreuse colour; re-shaping the neckline; removal of some width from the centre front; replacing the button band with a slightly wider long strip of black silk (already in the fabric collection). The black strip was folded in half and sewn onto each of the front pieces using the burrito method to get a clean finish inside and out. The non-interfaced sides of the under collar and collar were formed into a strip for the neck binding.

Remodelled Lavish shirt - front

Original / remodelled shirt back

The button band didn't go to waste either I used it on the back of a Sewing Workshop Olive top made from black merino.