Green Blackwood

Three years ago, I made a bright green Lisbon cardigan. It was, hands down, my favorite item of clothing. I wore that cardigan constantly for two years, until a giant purple splotch, about the size of a half-dollar, appeared on the back.  I have no idea what caused the stain or where it came from, but no amount of stain-treating would get it out. It was a sad day when I realized this, so I'm just going to take a moment to reminisce about my favorite me-made ever ...

The altered wardrobe

So I have been whining here and there about how nothing from my handmade wardrobe fits anymore, and how alterations haven't worked out the way I want them to.  I think maybe I was indulging in some bad-attitude moments, because lately I've been very motivated to alter existing pieces to fit, with a good deal of success.

I did, at first, think I would just start sewing new clothes. But then I realized that I was going to have to redraft and/or refit every single pattern just as if I were starting over.  That knocked the sewjo right out of me.  I had built up such a reassuring repertoire of TNT patterns before I lost weight, that I had many options to choose from when I was hit with the urge to sew something fast and well-fitting.

Not anymore.

So I've been hitting the sewing machine with a few old makes that I wanted to salvage.  Today I want to share my newly altered Josephine tops. These were made in 2017 from a Made By Rae pattern that I modified a bit. They've gotten a lot of use in the summers.  But with my changing shape, the tops had not only become too wide, but the armholes were too low and they now seemed much too long.

This top was made from a long-hoarded Kaffe Fasset rayon challis.  It was actually my second go at this pattern in the fabric; the first one suffered a horrible washing-machine death. Here's a photo of the second version when I sewed it about two years ago:

Before (original blog post).