When a Crafter goes Shopping

Over the whole last week I was planning to do something crafty this weekend. Last night I sat down with a bunch of Burda magazines and a cardboard box full of fabric, determined to find the perfect weekend sewing project. Well, things always end up differently than you think. In the end, no fabric and no pattern was good enough and the only thing that I really liked would have been another massive project. This morning I decided to try something quick and easy – quick success can be really motivating!

I went shopping.

This sounds easy indeed (it wasn’t that quick though).
I must have looked a little weird wandering through the store, touching this garment, touching that garment, trying on nothing and in the end buying oversized clothes from the men’s department. If someone had asked me what I wanted to do with those I would have said “Cut them to pieces.”

upcycling cheap clothes 1

And this is what I will do this weekend. Making pretty garments out of cheap, too big and poorly-made clothes. This is also why I tried to buy them as large as possible – more fabric, more options.

Why I bought men’s clothes? Well, for some projects I have on my mind, I’ll need shirting fabric and it’s really hard to find other than white one in the women’s department. And, guess what, men’s XL is bigger than a women’s XL. Plus, there are a lot of great fabric stores in London, but fabric’s rather expensive there.

I also came up with a new resolution for this year: Not to buy clothes from cheap and popular department store chains without completely altering them from scratch. For when I went shopping the last time and was really satisfied with my finding, I ended up wearing the same thing as two other people from my class. What a bummer!

Here are the “rough diamonds” I found:

black lace

Beautiful black lace that was supposed to be some kind of ill-fitting dress.

shirt fabric white bicycles

 A navy blue men’s shirt with cute little bicycles on it.

shirt fabric white dotsThis shirt is so big, it’ll make a cute little summer dress!

 upcycling cheap clothes

This one is my favorite! It’s exactly what I needed for a DIY project knock-off I’ve been itching to do for weeks! Be ready for suprises! I’ll keep you posted.

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