Usually when we refashion we talk about upcycling. Taking something and turning it into something better. Six years ago I bought a top for a wedding I was attending in the summer. It was a pretty lavender layered look with a shiny camisole covered by a gauzy silk overshirt with fluttery-sort-of-cap sleeves. Not sure what you call them. After the event I put it in my pile of stuff to be dry-cleaned. A year later I opened the dry cleaning bags to get something else and noticed that the front of the shirt had a burn mark on it. A year later is much too late to take it back for a refund or some sort of repair, if possible, so I was stuck with it.
Front and just right-of-center on the edge so no way to applique over it, even if you could applique on 100% gauzy silk. Very noticeable too, I tested on the boyfriend and he saw it right away. So it sat for the next five years as I debated what to do with it. Finally I had an idea.
Some coworkers of mine had gotten a yoyo maker from Clover that they showed me. Then I saw someone in an elevator that had gauzy fabric yoyos with beads in the center for flowers on an embellished cardigan. I decided to cut up the silk overshirt and make yoyos. As horrified as this made one of my coworkers, the shirt as is was doing me no good. With the yoyos I could use them as embellishment on something. The shirt in (mostly) before condition is below. Just imagine the front isn't cut away.
I decided to not cut squares as the yoyo maker suggests. I figured I would get more if I put the piece in and then cut around it. I was totally right. I would have gotten maybe half as many cutting out the squares first. Cutting around the device allowed me to finagle many more out of the available fabric. The final tally is below:
That is a lot of yoyos. No clue what I am going to do with them yet, but at least now I have something useful to pull out when I need instead of a pretty might-have-been sitting in a box.
So what do you think? Upcycle? Downcycle? Sidecycle maybe?
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