Refashioning runs in the family

Can't say whether my younger sister has signed up for the 12/01 refashioning period, but she's begun remaking stuff she has into stuff she likes better. How proud am I! She started fiddling with our mom's sewing machine and got it going well enough to make these rockin shirts from ones she collected from the best Salvation Army in the world, the one in the Roxborough neighborhood of Philadelphia:


You know, you sew the Elvis or Dylan chunk to the back side of a plain T, sew around the design and then  cut away the front of the T  close to the stitching. It's a technique I love myself.

Before the Christmas rush begins, I've been reshaping stuff that doesn't fit right. a favorite angora Old Navy wrap sweater bought from the best  Salvation Army in the Chicago area for pennies. Turns out it's maternity, which explains why it pooched out in the front no matter how tight I tied the strings. But the fabric's wonderfully soft and the gray goes with everything. I used to be afraid of cutting and sewing such knits but have gotten braver thanks to this blog. Actually, I sew the knits with a straight seam first -- then cut away the excess and bind the edges. You can see the before, the seam I made on each side, and the final - where the pooching is my gut rather than excess fabric.

This weekend, I plan to go to the giant JoAnn sale to buy fabric to line a gorgeous vintage crushed velvet coat purchased from Roxborough Salvy in, you know, 1998, for, you know, $7. The coat is black, so I wanted to pick a lining with what my mother would call pizzazz. Anybody got thoughts on what kind of fabric would work? What wouldn't?