A Year of “Re”: Linen Romper Reinvented
I decided to dive into my boxes of abandoned and forgotten projects to see if there were any that could be resurrected. To inspire myself for the next 12 months of these projects, I came up with 12 “re” words, and wrote each on a separate card. I will choose one card randomly each month to get me started. My first draw turned out to be “reinvent.”
As I looked over the different projects I had gathered, I saw a cute linen romper I had made a few years earlier but never wore. Not once.
I loved the fabric, and the pattern was cute. The romper had gotten lots of straight topstitching, but for some reason, it never got picked for an outing. I took it out of storage and put it on. Maybe I needed to be reminded that I liked it.
Ripe for reinvention
At once, I remembered that the fun twill tape zipper detail I had spent so much time creating made the center front stiff. It poked out and looked like I was trying to hide a small dog in the romper. And that was the reason it never made it into the wardrobe rotation. It seemed the perfect candidate for reinvention.
In the same box was a bias-cut scarf I had made eons ago to go with a dress of the same fabric. I still wear the dress, but the scarf had been retired. It happened to be a lovely match with my romper. The scarf needed to be reinvented along with the jumper.
More searching yielded a handful of linen scraps I figured would be helpful. My first “re” was taking shape.
I wasn’t sure what might happen, but I charged ahead and cut the romper in half. The first cut is the hardest, so…
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Awesome re-invent! I've done some of this myself with great results. Can't wait for next month's "re".
Thanks for checking out my challenge. The first month's project has me excited to do some more "Re's."
This is just great. I love seeing where you go with your projects! I bought the TRJ pattern a couple of years ago and had been working on other things last year (starting to learn to make my own patterns) so hadn’t gotten to it yet. Seeing what you did with the TRJ pattern in 2022 has inspired me, and I’ve signed up to make my first TRJ jacket this month, sewing along with Rae online. Your fearlessness with switching things up, and your obvious understanding of what works well for your own body and style is very inspiring to me! I’ll be following this year’s explorations closely. Cheers from Victoria, Canada 🇨🇦
I think you will really enjoy the TRJ pattern and Carrie and Rae are super teachers! Once you get the fit figured out you can change up the design details to get lots of lovely garments. Thank you for following along. It's been fun so far!