Well peops…today is the 11th and final instalment of The Refashioners 2013! I don’t know about you, but the past fortnight of guest posts from some of the blogosphere’s most talented and ingenious stitchers has left me gobsmacked and inspired in equal measure. It’s been an honour to host these ladies here on my little ole blog and I’ve been so gratified by all the hard work that they’ve put in, AND the fantastic response the series has received from all of you out there in blog land.

But just in case any of you were under the illusion that I had managed to side step my own challenge and sit back while the others racked their brains as to what to do with the items I sent them….fear not! Sally very kindly sent me my very own little mystery package to transform; and my jaw kinda hit the floor when I saw what was inside! A rather showy little beaded number! This project was a challenge for me, not least because my “style” (if you can call it that!) has never been particularly showy or embellished. So what to do? How to incorporate all that beading in a slightly more subtle incarnation? Enter the “bumble bead” skirt!

I’ve been inspired recently by colour and texture blocking. So I decided this was the perfect opportunity to try out an idea that’s been buzzing around in my head for a while. This outfit heralds a couple of rarities for me. Legs out, heels on, and much more dressy than my normal uniform. Although I feel a little at odds being “dressed up”, I’m rather pleased with the overall look, and the finished garment. The bugle beads lend themselves rather nicely to what feels like a kind of 20’s vibe with a modern twist…or is that just me??

This garment had it’s technical challenges from the outset. The beads are sewn in a continuous undulating pattern onto a top layer of chiffon. The problem with this kind of embellishment is that once a thread snags/breaks…you’re likely to lose whole lengths of the beading. There were several “bald” patches (like the one below right) around the dress. Add to that the prospect of cutting and sewing across beads, and, well…let’s just say , I was nervous about this one! I wish I could have included audio with this post. So you could hear the sound of the pitter patter of beads hitting my sewing room floor at pretty much every stage of this make….

I decided to make a feature out of the beaded chiffon. So my first step was to deconstruct the dress(below left), remove the lining (set aside for later!) and  figure out what workable pieces of chiffon I had. In the end it was the front panel that gave me the most options because most of the beading was intact and it was the largest piece of beaded fabric uninterrupted by seaming/zips etc (below right)…

While I wanted to make a feature of the sheer fabric…I didn’t want it to be see through. So I nabbed a pair of sandy coloured linen trousers from my refashioning pile to see how it would look as an underlining to the chiffon…that’ll do then!

From one of the trouser legs I set about making my panels. After cutting along all of the side seams I was left with 2 large oblongs. I folded then in half lengthwise and squared off all the edges….

Cut along my squared off lines and then along the fold…

This gave me 4 linen panels…(in the end I only used 3)…

I pinned these to the underside of my beaded chiffon…

Now to stitch the underlining panels to the chiffon. I opted to sew with the beads facing upwards because a) I didn’t want the beads  getting ground up or falling into the feed dogs of my machine, and b) I could better see what I was doing. If the needle hits those beads at the wrong speed/angle then the needle is history and/or you have bits of glass bugle bead shattering everywhere. (Just trust me, ok!) I opted for a long stitch to give the needle a better chance of skipping over the beads rather than through them. For the most part, this strategy works. (Only one broken needle) But, GO SLOW! Very, very, very slow…and watch the needle on every downstroke. If it looks like it’s gonna hit, stop, lift the presser foot and adJust the position of the fabric oh so slightly, then carry on….

Voila, underlining stitched to beaded chiffon…

Trim close to stitching. It was tricky to cut this as every inch or so my lovely (once sharp) dressmaking shears would snag on a bead (man it sets your teeth on edge when stainless steel crunches on glass beads!). So again, it was a slow process, adjusting the angle of the cut ever so slightly to avoid the beads…

My floor is covered in this stuff!

Anyway, finally 3 underlined panels (below left) I then cut contrasting solid black panels from some plain black fabric in my stash….

Then sewed them all together, much as you would a patchwork, again using a long stitch. However a long stitch will not hold this skirt panel together for very long and the seams look all puffy, right? ‘Cos I can’t press those puppies properly because of those pesky beads, you see?! Sooooo…..

I removed all of the beads that fell within the seam allowances on each panel (left), graded the seams (middle) then flipped the seam allowances away from the beaded sections…

Becauce there are no beads under the black piece now, I can topstitch with a normal stitch length (below left) which reinforces the seams and allows the edges to sit flat and flush instead of puffing up (below right)….

Phew! I now had what was basically a flat piece of fabric to work with. Enter the Charlotte Skirt pattern. I simply cut my front piece from my panelled piece of fabric. (That’s the reverse you can see, with the linen backing. Looks even more like a bumble bee!) The back pieces I cut from more of the plain black fabric…

One sticking point was that the darts on the panel overlapped onto the beaded section. I wasn’t going to be able to dart the beaded section. B*****ks! Well, as luck would have it the fabric I was using had some stretch. So I just sewed the skirt as normal without the darts in front, then pinned it to fit at the waist/side seams…..worked just fine!

The rest of the construction was as per the pattern apart from the waistband, which I faced with grosgrain ribbon. (Just find a faced waistband more comfy). I used the original zip by shortening it and then hand picked it. (I don’t think I’ll ever machine a zip in since discovering the hand picked method early on in my sewing journey). The side seams received the same topstitch treatment as the panels. I also used the lining from the original dress to line this baby. The eagle eyed might notice that there are only 2 beaded panels in the final skirt as opposed to 3. Well, in the end, when it came to it, the length just looked totally wrong. Like AWFUL. It just hit at the wrong spot on my calf. It was only a matter of an inch or so to make it right. But if I had just taken up the bottom black band by that, then the panelling effect would have been completelyout of balance. Taking it up to the next panel would’ve meant hemming over beads! Ack!.So I just lopped the bottom 2 panels off, et voila!

Essentially I created the blocked front section using patchwork techniques; just in straight panels instead of squares/triangles etc. This technique can be employed to create your own unique piece of flat fabric using scraps/sections from any number of garments. Once you have your flat piece of fabric you can just go ahead and cut your pattern piece as if it were any other piece of fabric. When it comes to incorporating colour blocking into a commercial pattern, it seems to me to be a much more straightforward route to do it this way;  (make your colour blocked fabric first, then cut your pattern piece from it) as opposed to slicing your commercial pattern up into various pieces then tracing them and adding seam allowances, cutting all the fabric seperately then having to stitch it back together again. Don’t you think??

Anyways, I didn’t stop there. Some of you might be wondering about the rest of the dress? Well yes. Actually I did sit there and unpick all those beads over 2 evenings. Sad? Moi? Yup! What did I do with them? Ooooohhhhh…..

I made these too….

There are far too many photos in this post already, so I have some separate DIY posts lined up for these.

But in the meantime a MASSIVE MASSIVE THANKYOU to all the ladies that took part this year!! Has it inspired you to get out there and raid the charity shops (or plunder the depths of your wardrobes) for unloved items to lavish a bit of refashioning love on? I do hope so 🙂