I bought this top because I loved the colour and the print, and the 60% off price tag didn’t hurt either. But when I tried it on, it just looked wrong to me. The dark brown fabric was too prominent and the ribbons that go under the bust and tie at the back just didn’t look good on me.

I figured there had to be a simple way to modify it so it wouldn’t look so strange. A quick bit of refashioning was in order…

After unpicking the seam between the brown neckline piece and the ribbon at each side, I looped the two ribbons over each other at the front for a gathered knot effect and then fed them through the unpicked areas to the wrong side of the top. I re-sewed the seam, sewing through the ribbons as well to keep them in place, then trimmed the excess ribbon from the inside. Finally, I snipped off the belt loop from each side and here’s my finished result:

Not bad for half an hour’s work!

There are some more modifications I considered (shortening the length slightly and/or adding some beading over the brown neck area), but sometimes the hardest part is knowing when to stop, and I like it the way it is now, so I will call this project done.