Pattern: True Bias Ogden Cami
Fabric: thrifted shirt
Cost: $8
This wild fabric began life as a thrift store shirt. Actually, I'm pretty sure it had quite a life before that as well. It has handwriting in Chinese on the tag, and a few of the covered buttons that went missing have been lovingly replaced with buttons in another style. So, clearly it was well-loved in its time.
This wild fabric began life as a thrift store shirt. Actually, I'm pretty sure it had quite a life before that as well. It has handwriting in Chinese on the tag, and a few of the covered buttons that went missing have been lovingly replaced with buttons in another style. So, clearly it was well-loved in its time.
In its second life, I bought it for $8 as my husband's Halloween costume as Tiger King. I, naturally, was Carole Baskins and Beatrix played the part of tiger.
And while I have always loved a good costume, for the past few years I have really tried to give my costumes some life after October. So rather than take this shirt back to whence it came, I decided to try refashioning it into a quirky Ogden cami. Those little party streamers were just begging to be a new party shirt.
The full blouse had just the right amount of fabric for a refashion - it's amazing how much you need when you're using something that's already made up! I kept the button front intact with three buttons, and while the shirt can still technically unbutton, it is secured at the top with the facing and the bottom with the ruffle.
To make the shirt, I cropped the top at two "stripes" and then used the full hem of the shirt to make a third row as a ruffle. I like the fullness this gives to the top. I did, however, end up adjusting it after making it by reattaching the ruffle higher up on the bodice. This felt like a more balanced proportion. You can see the before on the left below and the shortened version on the right. It's always nice to do a little tweaking if it doesn't come out just right the first time.
The top does feel a little unbalanced to me. The front wants to ride up and the back sits lower. I'm not sure if this is a feature of the pattern on my body or something that happened in my pattern hacking and refashioning. But it doesn't bother me a ton.
The nice thing about a refashion is, if you can salvage things like buttons and hems, it doesn't take a whole lot of time to do. I anticipated this would take me a few nights but actually sewed up in just one day.
After not buying the Ogen pattern for ages, I have found that I really love my first version and hope that I get some wear out of this one as well as the weather warms.
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