My first refashion of 2014...a copycat!

I hope you enjoyed your holiday season, and have started this new year with a fresh and positive perspective. Attitude can be the key to more: more happiness, more experiences, more successes and failures, more pure enjoyment of life! Now, I'm not normally such a chipper, positive person. Far from it, some days, but I like to take advantage of each new beginning (whether its a new year, another birthday, etc) to get myself straightened out a bit ;)

Enough of the pep talk, and down to business. I burned myself out a bit doing an "all homemade and thrifted" Christmas for my family. Don't get me wrong, I loved doing it and I'm glad that I did. Lack of funds truly helped breed creativity! But, once I'd finished everything up, I didn't want to have anything to do with my sewing machine or notions. So, I took a couple of weeks off. As I was browsing through my "refashion ideas" board on Pinterest, I came across a copycat that I wanted to make of the Beckett Buttondown (no longer available) from Anthropologie. I had the perfect navy blue thrifted top sitting in my stash, so I figured, what the heck. Let's see if I've got my mojo back...here's how it went down.

I started with this thrifted polyester number in navy blue:

To start, I chopped off the sleeves and hemmed them with two lines of topstitching:

Next step, I carefully cut along the edge of the cuffs (from the chopped off sleeves) and zigzagged along the cut edge to prevent any potential fraying in the wash. Then, I pinned them onto each shoulder (to verify placement) and then attached by sewing down the end on the inside, then using the button from the cuff (removed and then sewn onto the shoulder) to button it onto the top of the shoulder on the outside:

I also decided to give it the same kind of high-low effect by shortening the front of the top. I did this by simply chopping off 3 inches and rehemming the bottom edge:

At this point I thought I was done. But I woke up this morning and decided to change the shape of the back (low) hem by rounding it. I also took in each side, from the sleeve down, by about 2 inches and tapering out to create a slight A-line. This helped slim out the top a bit which I prefer being a smaller busted woman. Here's the final piece:

I love how it came out, and this is how I would style it on a warm spring day with flats or sandals. It'd go great with a striped maxi skirt, or even a pair of cutoffs once summer rolls around. And because I cut off my head in all of the above shots, I'll share my tired looking self as I finished this up this morning :)

Have an awesome day!
Peace,
Andrea