Adding a little lace can give an old top a whole new look, here's how I gave one sleeveless shirt a new lease of life (twice actually!)

I have a very inexpensive little sparkly top which I bought from Tesco in the sale a few years ago. I wore it just as it was a few times then gave it a little refashion inspired by Sweet Verbena's Pretty T Shirt by adding a strip of lace to the front. 

I wore it quite a few more times, then saw myself wearing it one to many times on my friends Facebook photos and decided it needed refresh.

I still like the black lace and bright pink combo so I stuck with that.

First I removed the old lace strip: I had been pretty good - look I had even undone the binding at the neck to make it all neat!

Once it was back to how it was (and I'm really wishing I had photographed that so you could see it all plain. Unfortunately I was such a busy bee I missed that step) I decided to try some detail over the shoulders this time.

I laid the top on a piece of lace and just cut round roughly, leaving a good inch all round.

Then I measured the back from the top of the shoulder to make sure the lace was straight and pinned. I pinned all round the neck and arm hole edges of the top, just in from the binding, using loads of pins and smoothing everything as I went. I also pinned across the bottom of the lace.

Use loads of pins if your fabric is slippery like mine.

I found that it helps to put a magazine inside your top, that way you can pin just the layers you want to much more easily.

Then I just started to trim the excess lace, using my lovely sharp dressmaking scissors and taking my time. Slowly, slowly I just cut all round, level with the edge of the binding round the neck and arm holes.

At the front, the lace was now slightly at an angle because of how it came over the shoulders. I thought about leaving it like that but in the end thought it would look better straight so I CAREFULLY chopped it off and pinned, pinned, pinned.

Next I just fired up the sewing machine and stitched all round with black thread. Again - slowly and carefully. I had to have a pretty loose tension on this to prevent puckering as the fabrics were so fine and floppy. 

I also stitched the neck binding back up where I had undone it to remove the old lace, this time with pink thread.

Ta Dah! Goodness me, I look very pale in these photos! I mean, I AM very pale but I’m proper ‘lily white’ in these photos!

I'm really please with the results, and see how nicely it goes with my recycled necklace

Julie

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