It’s autumn in New Jersey, and as per the state’s mandated guidelines, everyone must start wearing down home, country clothing and attending farm-based activities. Men must wear red and black plaid shirts anytime they’re within 5 miles of a pumpkin patch. Women have to carry a pumpkin spice consumable item, be it latte and/or donut, while sporting a Star Wars costume.
I don’t make the rules.
To avoid slipping into the vest and riding boots look, I’ve been cultivating my Pinterest board to reflect a mod mixed with hygge/cottage-core vibe, and that means… say it with me…
OVERALLS!
They’re one of the cuter utilitarian outfits, yet they should be approached with caution. There’s a right way and a wrong way to wear overalls, and the difference is only separated by a razor thin line.
Sorry guys, I don’t know how that rotten pumpkin snuck into the patch, I hope that wasn’t too much of a fright!
Anyhow, when I saw this look on Pinterest, I was like YASSSSSSSSSS 😍
What I had to start with was this:
These coveralls are from Unique Vintage, and are probably fine as is, but I’ve noticed that whenever I wear denim coveralls, people can’t stop referencing Rosie the Riveter, the only documented woman in all of history that ever wore a pair of denim coveralls (or so it would seem).
They should work just fine for this refashion, without triggering the “Rosie” response.
First step: get rid of the collar. I’m using a light colored pencil, a straight edge, and a vary form curve to mark even lines for where I want the new neckline and armscye to be.
Then I started trimming the fat.
Then, the collar. You have to be super careful here because you may not want the front bodice and back bodice to have the same neckline, so make sure to check your lines before cutting!
Now check them again!!!
Before we go any further, let’s serge all the edges. That will keep the fabric from stretching as well as prevent fraying on the finished garment.
Apparently I didn’t get a picture after all the edges were serged, but I promise it was fire. It looked like a tank top version of coveralls. As whenever you remove sleeves, there will be a gap of about an inch under each armpit. Simply pin the front and back right sides together, and sew down to the waist seam, gradually decreasing as you go.
Next we will use those old sleeves to make the ruffles! There isn’t much material to work with, so do this part e x t r e m e l y s l o w l y.
The idea now is to cut out arches from the sleeves, because once they are stretched, they will form a natural ruffle, as illustrated here:
Here’s a fun aside: if you look at the sleeve cap, you’ll see my hand fits the arch perfectly. This is important to know because if you ever want to insert sleeves onto a sleeveless garment, you can use your hand to make the pattern!
Again, back to the serger to clean up the edges. Then, pin the ruffle right sides together with the front of the overalls.
To keep the ruffles in place (so, not folded under the armscye), I did a stay stitch 1/8th of an inch from the edge. This will also help hide the seam where the ruffle and shoulder strap meet.
The last step is to make a facing for the armscye seams. I laid the overalls flat onto some doubled over scrap fabric, marked it, and cut. In total you should have 4 pieces, 2 for each arm.
Once the armscye was sealed, I flipped the facing to the inside of the overalls, and serged it. ***I didn’t serge it before hand, because I wasn’t sure how thick I wanted the facing to be until it was already in.
I thought about doing a facing for the neckline as well, but I also thought about not doing it. Guess which one I chose.
I folded the neckline edges to the inside of the overalls and stay stitched them down. And that was it!!!
Y’all ready for the fashion show?
Gotta say, I’m pretty proud of the sleeve recycling and making use of every scrap. I even saved the collar to use as a cute dickey, should the need arise.
So what do you think? Feel free to leave a comment about your cool overall rehauls, or any ideas for future projects!
Bye for now!
~Madeleine
Moonflower DIY 