Making it work, Mabel edition !

Hi everyone !

The Curvy Colette blog tour is finished and Jenny wrote a wonderful round up post. I had a lot of fun in the process of sewing my Mabel and Moneta. It has been a great experience and it is only the start of something much bigger that will come to you very very soon !

Now ! Time for a little behind the scenes oopsy. My first attempt at the Mabel went slightly wrong. I do not have any photo to document the « before » stage, mainly because it was hurting my vanity. Now, as you saw on our posts, we all used a pretty thick knit to smoothe the curves and lumps. Well, I got a bad start, completely ignoring the idea. See, my approach was to go for a print that would take the eye where I would want the eye to go. I thought I found the perfect print : a beautiful pannel with amazing colours. Well no...

It went very wrong. The fabric was way too thin to wrap smoothly around my curves. It clung to them instead. Even if I had cut a size larger. You must already understand how sad I was... I loved that fabric but it was amost impossible to salvage anything or rip out the stitches. Due to the pannelled nature of the print, I only had barely enough for the skirt, and no leftover. I racked my brains and tried to remember if I had a pattern that would fit within the leftover parts. Nothing...

Then I started thinking that I really liked the waist peices, with the lining. Would there be any possible way to keep it ? Than I flipped it over and I had a eureka moment !

What if it became a top ! What if I did not have to rip any stitches ! Yes Yes Yes ! It could actually work ! What if I stitched my former hem on the sides, to create shoulder seems... And what if I cut armholes on my former side seems ???

It took me 15 minutes to flip this skirt into a top ! And you know what ? It worked magically... The pannel print work beautifully as a blouse. The fabric that was the source of the skirt clinginess became the reason why this top has a beautiful drape. The waist stayed a waist. The stripes along the form hem became a great shoulder line. I am so happy about this mishap turned success !

A shoe parting shot :)

What about you lovely ladies (and gents?), have you ever had a "make it work" moment? If so, it would be great if you could link it, I would love to see where your imagination led you!