A fabulous find that combines this season’s trends for neon colours and Hawaiian prints has inspired several projects using neon. This is the second of three installments. Tune in tomorrow to see the final part in this series.

As a reminder, here’s what we’re working with: this fantastic three piece suit.

Today I’m working with the shirt from the outfit.

I’m going to combine it with part of this black skirt. This has been in my collection for literally years. It originally came from the British Heart Foundation shop in Whitby and cost £3.99, marked down from £4.25. I know this because the tag was still attached!

I originally bought this skirt for the beautifully embroidered waistband, which looks like something you might find in traditional Russian fabrics. My plan was to turn it into a belt or something, so look out for that in a future post. I detached the waistband and set it to one side. The skirt itself is a slightly shiny black stretch satin, which is rather heavy.

The blouse was sporting some rather large shoulder pads – not a good look. They were the first thing to go.

Next, the sleeves came off. I pinned the sides of the blouse in for resizing, keeping the original size at the hem of the blouse, but tapering to quite a large adjustment under the arms.

With the new side seams sewn, I finished the armholes by overlocking/serging them then folding under once and stitching down with yellow thread. It looks pretty good for such a quick solution.

The final step was to make the material harvested from the black skirt into a band of material, the same size as the blouse so they could be joined together.  I hemmed it above the knee at what I thought was a pleasing length.

Here’s the final result – I paired this with my new metal belt again.

Perfect for an al fresco dinner in the sun!