Apologies, Mr Miyake

I read an article in a fashion magazine about young moderns and it girls in London taking scissors to designer duds and creating their own look.  Hah! I thought, who would slice up designer clothing?  Who even has designer clothing to slice up?

Then I came across an Issey Miyake zig-zag vest.  It's in that currently popular zig-zag that Missoni uses but is from several seasons ago:

I could button it up, but it was a bit on the tight side.  Several months passed while I thought about how to personalize it.  Then my favourite notions store had some stuff on sale, which I bought and just left in the sewing box.

Finally one day I  took the plunge and proceeded to slice up the sides.  I ended up putting a fabric piece into each side and criss-crossing some suede strips over it.  I think it looks okay:

You can't really see it when it's on, but it adds a bit of interest if you move.

Project Post-mortem

• It still feels unfinished and I'm looking for some very dark dark brown trim to finish it off
• I also hate the buttons and will probably replace them with something darker and perhaps slightly shiny
• Now that I'm doing the weight loss thing, I might just sew it back up when the countdown clock gets down to zero. 

UpSize a T-Shirt

It's quite easy to downsize a big t-shirt, but sometimes you need to upsize a shirt if it's a bit too revealing.  I like my clothing a little looser so you don't see all the lumps and bumps underneath.
I tried it out on an old t-shirt.  You need a long-sleeved one because the sleeves are used for the extra material.  If you are good at mixing fabrics, textures etc you could use a different fabric - but I'm completely useless at that.

This one was done quite a while ago, so I only have after shots, but here is a pic of what you have to do.

• First you have to measure everything.  Always measure and re-measure to be sure you have enough material.
• Decide where you want your sleeves to end (remembering to include room for the sleeve hem).  Make sure that the cut-off part of the sleeve (the blue) when doubled (there are 2 sides to the sleeve) and joined together is enough to span the length of the complete side of the t-shirt from hem to sleeve (this is shown by the red line)
• Re-measure before cutting.
• You can include the hem of the original sleeve and sew to the hem at the bottom of the t-shirt.

Here are some after pics.

This is the side insert:

This is the front:

Et voila!  Upsized and wearable!