Sewing With A Plan 2015- Item #1 Part 1

I like to read along over on the forums at Artisan Square.  I happened upon them after I googled the winner of the first season of the Great British Sewing Bee, Ann Rowley.  She had a thread on Artisan Square where she offered advice to less experienced sewists

There are a ton of sewalongs on those forums, and the biggest every year is called SWAP or Sewing With a Plan.  This year the rules call for 3 bottoms, 5 tops and 3 wild cards, and all of the items are supposed to coordinate.  Most of the sewing is to occur between 25December and 30April.  I am planning to make the bottoms and wild cards in shades of black and grey, and the tops will be my pops of color.

Another guideline is for one garment to be either recycled material or reversible or transformable in some way.  I have chosen a recycled item for my first garment of my 2015 SWAP.  I started with this bad shirt I made last year.

It was originally from Simplicity 1805, but I think because the neckline starts out so big, that was made worse by my attempts at grading the pattern up to fit me.  I was also baffled by the cut on sleeves, and how to resize those for my large biceps without the shoulders going wonky.  Add to that the fact that all my hems refused to lay flat, and this thing was a serious WADDER.  I saved it thinking I could cut it up for underthings, but then when I read the SWAP guidelines, I remembered this top.

My idea was to cut it down center front and make it into a light cardi/shrug.  I rounded the front edge and cut the sleeves to be above my elbows.  Then I cut some binding from a lighter shade of grey (this is new fabric bought for SWAP).  I am sewing the binding down by hand Alabama Chanin style, and adding some beading.

I ordered thread and beads from Alabama Chanin and am following the directions in the book Alabama Studio Sewing + Design: A Guide to Hand-Sewing an Alabama Chanin Wardrobe. I've finished cutting and pinning all of the binding, and have sewn about halfway around one sleeve. That means I have miles of sewing left, so watch this space for further progress reports!