Today I'm on the hunt for a suit or jacket that I can update into a blazer skirt set
it's a little shout-out to all the girl bosses, clueless, and
fall weather. Many of you have requested a blazer video for years
but I'm still really intimidated by them. So today is a baby step to build my confidence
We're gonna see if I can DIY a skirt suit from a gem I find at Value Village. I
really hope it works out
I'm actually really happy to say that today's video is sponsored by Value Village to talk about the wastewater
involved in new clothing as many of you know
The fashion industry is painfully wasteful and when I make my clothes here, I get to show the work and the materials
So you might consider it before you shop especially fast fashion just to make a brand new t-shirt alone produces over
2,000 liters of waste water
so if you can thrift a little more reuse your clothes a little more it makes a difference every time for
$9.99 today's value village find was this blazer with matching...
Maxi skirt? Something I have never seen before but I love the tiny plaid the olive green the shoulders fit pretty nicely
I might even keep the pads in and
The skirt has this great button detail on the front
But the skirt does not fit me at the waist as you can see
I really want to shorten it to more of a mini length, and the Blazer has a
very cheap
Lining job at the sleeve. It's just this black fabric
It's not even long enough to let me flip the cuff and with everything else being so muted
I wish the lining could be a bit more fun. Okay, let's begin. We'll start with the waist when I put on the skirt
I could pinch in about 3 and 1/2 centimeters from both sides
So I flipped it inside out
Measured 3 and 1/2 centimeters put in some pins and I'm gonna sew with a straight stitch from the waist
Kind of tapering it out to the hip and later if that's still too wide I can adjust it
Trying it on to see if we hit the spot
that's not bad
there is room for food
looking good
I think I will cut off one button and then finish off the edge
and we'll see how we feel about that
With the measuring tape, I made chalk markings all along the front of the skirt
So that the length would stay consistent with the waistline and then I cut off the excess fabric from the front and the back
Trying to keep things as straight as possible. There. It is. The one button that didn't make
the cut
And here's what we're dealing with now
I think I'm gonna actually thin it out as well on the sides because like
Obviously I can walk comfortably and I don't need all this fabric
the more fabric there is
The more scary it is when the wind blows because it's just gonna go all over the place as I mentioned
I found that it flared out way too much to be a nice a-line shape
So I flipped it inside out and did a straight stitch all along the side to bring it in
I just finished the seam on here and popped it on to the steamer to
Straighten out all these wrinkles, but now looking at it. I kind of regret going the route of
Doing this like simple fold-over steam seam. I feel like it doesn't look as professional and so
I'm really considering undoing it to give it a proper
Like kind of like how dress pants work because that way it would match to the blazer better and it would look a bit more
Professional that will be my project tomorrow. You're looking okay so far gonna try to make you look better. Ah,
Nobody likes seam ripping. I would not wish this on
like
Anyone, I don't think I have
My most hated enemies, but if they exist I would not even wish this on you this sucks
But we put up with it anyone has invented a way to make seam ripping tolerable or even enjoyable
please let me know I
Hate it so much
Okay, this is the bottom of the skirt that i had previously completely cut off it already has this nice strip of fabric along
The bottom edge that I can use to help hem my new skirt
so I used a seam ripper to open it up a little bit on the side and then I went in with my scissors to
Cut this strip free from the skirt bottom. This is what I ended up with about one centimeter of raw
Folded in fabric and the larger side has a completely serged edge
So it's not gonna fray and it's all nice and clean and ready to use with the right side of the skirt facing me
I opened up the fold and pinned it right sides together raw sides touching all the way around the skirt as
Closely as possible
I sewed a straight stitch all along that folded ditch and then after going all the way around the skirt
I tucked the flap to the inside of the skirt and ironed it all nice and flat if
Your sewing machine has a blind hem foot
I really encourage you to try it out because it's pretty cool and not that intimidating
so I swapped mine in and
I'll put a link in the description
If you want to see a really really high detail of how this works under my right hand
Is that little flap of fabric that we added and onto my left hand is the skirt
Folded and basically because it does a tiny stitch every once in a while from the outside
You can't really see that there's a stitch there
This is used for formal wear business wear to help hold a hem in place without showing where the stitching is
And that's what makes it look nice and crisp and professional
unfortunately
If you don't have a blind hem
Foot you will have to do this by hand and it just involves picking up a little bit of the fabric every two
Centimeters or so so that no continuous stitch can be seen from the outside
I'm so excited to show you how the skirt turned out but the last step involves this jacket
I wanted to take out this
Lining because it's black and not very exciting and it's so short that you can't even fold up the end of the cuff
so I just reached in there try to get as close to the seam as possible and
Used a pair of scissors to cut the entire piece out
then I place this lining on the fabric that I actually wanted to use for my lining and it's this pretty
pastel pink as you can see one side lining is completely serged which is nice so it won't fray and
So to take advantage of the finished edge of the pink fabric
I was working with I lined it up so that I could trace the entire shape of the lining but have all this extra fabric
That had a finished edge at the bottom and that helps my lining to go deeper into my sleeve
Giving me enough fabric to fold up the cuffs
Once I had my new lining cutout
I made a symmetrical piece to go on the other sleeve and now these are ready to be inserted to the jacket first up
I folded these to be right sides together and sewed them with a straight stitch to form a tube
I started at the edge that was finished not the raw edge
Because I wanted the edge that was finished to line up nicely
I did cut off some of the excess fabric so that it would be a nice and uniform tube and
Repeated that with the other piece of lining
I slipped this over the sleeve and pinned this right sides together to the inside of the sleeve
Making sure that I was pinning the raw edge of the lining so that after it's all sewn up
It will totally disappear
All of that was sewn together
With a straight stitch all the way around and here's how it looked when I was done
I made sure that I sewed even further in than where the black lining
Originally was so that that way when we flip it to take a look
No, trace of the black lining is left since I have completely covered it all up
I shoved all the lining inside the sleeve and then
Reached in from the armhole to pull the entire sleeve inside out this let me fold the sleeve back so that I could do another
Blind hem and attach it to the inside of the sleeve without that blind hem
I'll run the risk of pushing out the lining every single time. I insert my arm
I want to make sure it's all attached to the wall so that
My hand goes straight through the sleeve tube to secure the fabric and make sure everything was lying nice and flat
I did a set of pins all the way around the middle
Of the tube just to make sure it was locked up then
I partially tucked it back in letting just a centimeter of the lining poked out
This is to help me do the stitch with my blind hem foot
I pinned that all the way around and then took it to the Machine
This blind hem might be a little bit easier to see than the one I did on the skirt since now we have contrasting fabric
But again, if you look the needle sews a couple of stitches along the pink lining fabric
Which is invisible to the outside and then once in a while hops over to the left where?
It does one tiny stitch on the plaid fabric which is visible on the outside
Once this is done all the way around the sleeve
The lining is completely attached to sleeve
but on the outside you can't tell because it's only a tiny stitch every once in a while and with that we arrived at the
good ole before
let's take it in and
after
*Music*
Let me know if you liked this thrift update and if there's anything you want to see me. Try next time don't say Blazers
I'm still scared. If you haven't found me on Instagram yet
it is @withwendy and there will be plenty more photos of this outfit as well as
Everything that I've made in the past you will also get to see some photos from when I visited the Value Village art
installation in Toronto for waste reduction week
They set up a huge spill of clothing to look like water and this was to talk about the amount of wastewater involved in manufacturing
New clothing in many cases thrifting is a better alternative than buying new clothes
I know it can be a bit intimidating but my experience is that it's really fun
And when everything you wear is making an impact thrifting feels really good
I actually shared my thoughts on this along with Cassi and Ricci from Tothe9s in a previous video when we went thrifting for
primary colors as a challenge if you want to see that video, I will put a link in the description and it's also
Here as always if you end up trying any of my tutorials
Please use the #madewithwendy so I can see it. Thank you so much for watching and
Someone just sneezed really loudly
Thank you so much for watching and if you're subscribed, I'll see you next time