Ah to be shir, to be shir

Thanks to the Craftstylish blog for showing me how easy it is to create elastic shirring and giving me the inspiration for these two vintage refashions this weekend.

Exhibit A:

Once upon a time this was a long sleeved dress. I bought it off ebay because it had a pussy bow neck, and I had just seen The Secretary and I was obsessed with all things pussy bow. But when I got it home I realised it looked a bit more Little House On The Prairie than hot librarian on me. To pull it off I'd have to a lot taller, a lot skinnier and be able to wear HEELS. And I've been looking at it guiltily ever since.

This was a bit of a freeform hack job I have to admit. But, well I figure that can be it's charm. I took my scissors to it and then faked a rolled hem by doing a zigzag stitch about 1/2 stitch length around the raw edge. Did a bit of gathering and made a neck strap.

But it's a breezy loose fitting material and I needed to do something to the back. The material seemed to delicate to put a casing for a thick band elastic like I did for my dress last weekend, so instead I decided to give this shirring stuff a go! Not a bad first effort, me thinks.

Exhibit B:

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This originally was a long sleeve vintage shirt that I got on sale at Episode for next to nothing. I liked the material though I don't really ever wear shirts. It was much too big anyway. Like I did with my dress last weekend I did some snipping, made a casing on the front and back this time, and used material from the sleeves to make shoulder straps to thread through.

It still looked a bit billowy when I tried it on so I took some more from under the armpits down to the waist and then I did a line of shirring at the waist line. I could have just sewed in some thin elastic I suppose by shirring just seemed easier!

I think shirring could end up being my new favourite cheat's way to gather!