A Few More Alterations

I made an effort to do a bit of sewing again this week. A few alterations were needed to a couple of things, so I started with those.

The first alteration I did was to this leopard print cotton poplin blouse, that I bought from an ASOS sample sale a couple of months ago. I paid £3 for this, which was a steal, but everytime I tried to wear it, it just didn't look right. It had babydoll type sleeves which were very puffy and just looked a bit silly on me, so everytime I went to wear it, I took one look at myself in the mirror and immediately thought better of it. 

As a consequence, I decided to alter it to make it more wearable. Initially, I cut off the sleeves thinking I might make it sleeveless, but then decided to re-add less puffy sleeves, which I did and I much preferred the look of the garment. I'm not really into overly dramatic silhouettes and these sleeves were just that, so they had to go.

Here's the finished blouse with new sleeves, which were made out of the insides of the babydoll sleeves:

I'm much happier with the new look and it is much more likely to get worn now.

There was also some spare fabric, as a result of this alteration, from the outside layer of the babydoll sleeves and I used most of this to cut out another cross body bag to run up at some point when I get the chance. I'll post about this separately once it's finished.

The second alteration, was to a small cotton handbag that I bought from a charity shop this week for £1. It was a small heart shaped bag with a ruffled trim around it and I thought it would be perfect to make an oversized bag charm for a leather tote that I sometimes use. 

All I needed to do, was to remove the bag handles/straps, stuff the bag with my mini fabric scraps, left over from various projects and then sew it closed and add a little loop to hang it from my bag. I then sewed on some cute beaded patches that I bought on eBay a while back and I was very happy with the quirky finished result.

I've wanted to make this type of bag charm for a while, but I'm not confident with regard to creating the ruffle around the edge, so this was a perfect opportunity for me to make one, without having to attempt this.

Two very simple alterations, that took very little time, but created items that I now really like.

Have you altered anything lately?