Wardrobe Refashion

dragon jeans

  

 This is one of the things I started some weeks ago. The motifs are made using techniques taught by Tracy Bautista. Life has got very busy as I am trying to get my certificate for teaching adults in further education. (teaching sewing!) I had planned to finish stitching the motifs down over the Christmas holiday, but I have to make an emergency trip to America, as my sis is very ill. So, I will finish those and a few other things I started when I return.

and because the winter in Maine is EXTREEMELY colder than it is here, I have had to go rushing round town to get some warm things, so this is my get out of jail free card. unfortunately the jeans are the only pair that fit me nicely. I would love to take them, but I don't have time to sort them. Oh well.

Forgot a Title!

Okay, maybe tackling a refashion on the weekend before Christmas wasn't such a good idea.  My husband just walked in and asked when I'd be ready to go to the gym, and I nearly bit his head off.  (Sorry.)

But it had to be done.  I bought this printed velvet skirt a while ago and figured it would be perfect for the holidays, so I dropped everything to sew.

Before--too long, waist is too small, too formal, too Mary Tyler Moore:

After--shorter, more casual, and fits:

This was all about chopping the top off and fiddling around with the waist.  More pictures, etc. at Darling Petunia.

Whew...I feel better now.  Off to apologize to my husband....

2 Prs. Jeans to Winter Skirt

This took me all week. I went slowly followed directions, and pinned and re-pinned until I got it right. Then I sewed.

Broken camera...but lots of sewing!

I was home all of last weekend (Fri - Mon) with a nasty sinus infection, which rendered me unable to work, but perfectly able to sew...go figure!
I whipped up 3 pairs of pajama pants for myself with some pretty new magenta flannel, an cream flannel sheet, and some old-man-looking-printed flannel.  I have pictures, I swear, but they are stuck on my stupid camera and it refuses to cooperate.
I also have pictures of the 2 passport covers and matching luggage tags I made for my parents - they're going to Cancun after Christmas (first time traveling outside the country), the multiple jam-jar toppers, bookmarks, and eyeglass holders (all gifts for aunts and grandmas), and pajama pants for my sweet hubby (sage flannel with skulls!).  The pictures are lovely, I swear.  You'll just have to take my word for it.  Stupid camera.
Now I'm going to make some catnip-stuffed cat toys for my in-laws kitties...and I'll probably take some completely useless photos of those as well... :) 
Merry Christmas to all and I wish you all a better-working camera than me!  Stupid camera...grumble, grumble, grumble... :)

12/23/08 - EDIT - had to also fix computer as it wouldn't read the memory card from the stupid camera, but now back in action!  Here are photos of gifts and pants (folded).  Top row of gifts are obviously jam jars, left to right in second row: dog collar, bookmarks, eyeglass cases, luggage tags, passport covers.  Kinda blurry, sorry (re: stupid camera!). 

 

First official refashions

A thrifted turtleneck and an untested pattern equal an instant donation. Before:

and after:

It's too low and sloppy, so I'm glad I didn't use special fabric for the first try.

Another remodel, from dowdy dress (thrifted)  in wool challis:

to a test of McCalls 4007. I'm not too sure about this tunic, but it's better than the dress was.

Placemats. I subscribe to a swatch service, and can't bear to throw out all the natural-fabric swatches they send, but they are threatening to take over. I sewed most of the beige/tan linen ones into strips, cut them in half, and used them to trim placemats of plain beige linen. (thrifted yardage, years ago)

Baby refashions

Before (Yucky & ripped):

  After (Clean change pad, happy baby):

 

Jonathan needed a new change pad. Mommy is cheap. BUT mommy is thrifty. So mommy bought a plastic table pad and made a new cover for the foam!

I haven't been doing much refashioning lately, I'm focussing on "from scratch" items for a contest on Pattern review. Also, I'm 1 month pregnant!! Yay! We are very excited, but I'm pretty tired lately...hopefully I'll be able to keep sewing - I've already bought 2 Burda maternity patterns I can't wait to make.

Holiday Crafting

I've been working on a lot of Christmas-related stuff lately. Mostly jewelry, since I usually make a couple necklaces as stocking stuffers for my mom and she requested that I take her bead stash and go nuts this year. So trying to use up a good bit of what she has on hand.  But I've had time to do some sewing too!

These are some "tea wallets" that I made using fabric I had around the house-- the brocade one is for my brother's girlfriend, and the blue one is for one of my friends who lives out of town and I wanted something light to mail to her.  I got the idea from this tutorial, but adapted it a little bit to involve less layers of fabric (after my first attempt with six layers of fabric looked a bit messy and then I ruined it with a bad snap job. I'm going to try to fix it for myself anyway...either that, or tear it up and use it as stuffing!)

And this is what they look like on the inside. They're designed to hold up to six tea bags.

I don't have pictures yet of the first project, but I had enough time on Saturday to do 1 3/4 reconstructions too! (3/4 because I thought I was done, but it needs tweaking.) One of my friends is having a party on Friday with a sort of Russian theme (basically an excuse to serve us all White Russians), and in our last conversation, she told me that some people requested wearing red and military-looking stuff to match the theme. So I had this leather trenchcoat (I used part of it to make a bag that I showed on here a couple of months ago) that had this fake-fur lining portion. It is now a big furry Russian hat. I'll try to get a picture or two at the party.

This was my second project, which I 'm making from a stretch velvet dress I found a couple years ago at the thrift store and was just waiting for inspiration. I need something to wear for my church's Christmas Eve service (I'm on the music team and will therefore be up front). I pretty much just chopped part of the skirt off and sewed on the ribbon to make it an empire-waist tieback. But the ribbon isn't quite laying right, and the lower portion of the tunic still has too much flare to look right. So I need to untack the ribbon from the sides and sew it on by hand while it's on the dummy, I think. And then figure out if there's any way to remove some of the skirt flare without undoing the entire hem that I already did!

My new fanny pack

This is something I have been wanting to do for quite awhile--finally decided to take a break from Christmas preparations to work on it. I had made the pattern before--McCall's 5279, 1991, a fannypack with just one compartment. It wore out and I have used one found at a yard sale that had three compartments, but it was plastic, generic and not really fun...now, thankfully, it wore out, sort of forcing the issue of getting another one. I am not very good at engineering, so I took the problem of how to get an extra pocket to my husband (who built our house and can do things like that). He folded some paper till I got it; I made up a prototype Saturday, then Sunday started the "real thing." Sunday I finished all but the clasps, and even now I am thinking of buttons (although I have clasps from the old one)...that's what I did on the prototype. Luckily I have lots of zippers (I stock up at yard sales when I find them, metal, plastic, short, long, all of them), lots of buttons and thread and tons of fabric. You can see I have a place for my cellphone, another for my glasses, and one for the money! There is room leftover for chapstick, wallet, pills and kleenex if I am doing more than going to yard sales. I love having my hands free at the library too!

Next batch of pressies

Here are the batch of knitted pressies I have made for my daughter's flatmates.  They are all knitted and I'm afriad I did buy the wool for all of them as I didn't have enough of the right wool, except the socks, I have lots of sock wool but my daughter,who is much more conservative than me deemed my wool too bright!!!!

I made the hat from Woolly Wormheads Going Straight (fab book, if you only ever get 1 hat pattern book get this one!!)  The socks are from designedy Kristi (available on line) and the gloves from a pattern I found on Ravelry.  I love that there are so many patterns for all crafts available on line, I spend far too long browsing them and planning future makes!!

Anyway here are today's offerings.

Merry Christmas to you all, I'm off to finish last few gifts, which I will post if I get them done in time!! 

can't decide on a title

 Every Saturday night, I pull out  all of the clothes out of my closet and get depressed that I have nothing to wear to church the next day.  Well this week, I did something different! It only took 3 hours (I'm still a little slow) to turn a 2xl turtleneck that my grandmother got discounted (you've seen one already as a pilgrim dress) into this much-more-fitted shirt.  This Saturday, I pulled out my black pants, hung this shirt up, and went to bed happy (instead of depressed) knowing I had something cute to wear that I had made : )

(This is a closeup of the sleeve.)