Showing posts with label ribbon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ribbon. Show all posts

Saturday, 30 July 2011

From Lumpy to Lovely

My home is in disarray because Mr Needles and I have decided to re-decorate, as we want to sell up someday soon, and as a neat freak/control freak, I find it a bit hard to cope with everything being all over the place (where did all of these shoes come from?), so I need stuff to take my mind off of it. 

Admit it, it's a bit lumpy.....
 I bought this jumper last year from a thrift store in a Miami suburb. I can't remember the price - maybe about $5 - and even though I wasn't quite sure about it at the time, I thought how bad could it be ...... because it has HUGE SILVER SEQUIN BOWS ON THE SHOULDERS !!!!!! -

Brilliant bows!
 Judging by the label (below) and the feel of the fabric (pure, luxurious acrylic!) it looks like it's from the 80', maybe late 70's:


 But when I tried it on, it's just a big shapeless thing with these big sequin lumps on the shoulder. Not one to be put off, I decided it would be much better as a little cardigan. I've noticed how vintage knitwear from the 50's and 60's is often faced with grosgrain ribbon along the buttonholes and buttonband.

With this in mind, I went off to Ridley Rd market for 3 m of black ribbon (total : £1.98) and then set about making it much less lumpy!

First, I found the centre front and ran some tacking stitches along this line. I also undid a few of the sequins at the neck and secured them with pins, to be re-stitched later:




Close up of un-stitched seqins
Next, I pinned a length of ribbon each side of the centre front tacking, on the wrong side of the jumper:



This was stitched in place, then the jumper was cut along the tacking stitches.Then I folded the ribbon around to the front, and stitched it back down:


I tried it on at this stage; the length is still a bit too long, and unflattering. I pinned ribbon about 4" from the bottom edge, and did the same as the front.

And voila!



Now it's more like a little jacket. As I'm a bit lazy, and I'm not that keen on the buttonholes my machine makes, I decided to just fasten it with a little crystal button at the neck.



I took these photos a little while after finding out that Amy Winhouse had passed away. Such a shame. Shooting stars shine brightest.