Wardrobe Refashion

Pillow

I made this pillow for Irene, a 97-year old lady I've been visiting as a volunteer community visitor. All the fabrics were from my scraps stash (the blue flowerish fabric was cut out to make a napkin but I gave up...the name was cut out from some blue polar fleece scraps). Blue is Irene's favourite colour. I used some toy stuffing I got from a freecycler to stuff the pillow. It's the first time I make a pillow and applique polar fleece but I made it! I gave it to Irene this morning as her 97th birthday present and she loved it.

Please see more about it in my blog here: http://sewlovesew.blogspot.com/2009/10/pillow-made-for-irene.html

October Refashions

Quick! Quick! Before the month is out, I have to make a post.

Mostly this month, I've been knitting this sweater:

I signed up for a knitting class, so for four weeks I was knitting non-stop. It kind of ate up my refashion time. But, I did actually get a couple of quick things done. There were a couple of draft blockers for the doors:

Just tubes of fabric made out of tshirts from The Pile. I stuffed one with rice and one with a combination of fabric scraps and rice. 

I have also figured out why some pants (trousers in British English) make me look frumpy: too much fabric. It's meant to accommodate curvy thighs, but my thighs appear to be straight. Well, at least the solution is to turn the pants inside out, find where they bulge, and stitch a straight seam instead. I figured this out by putting on the pants inside-out and pinning until they looked better.

Before:

After:

 

Those are the highlights of what I've been up to. I'm hoping to make a lot more progress next month.

-- VanimaAndune

halloween costumes - finished!

What a relief to be finished making costumes (see the others here and here). With the help of some good music and strong coffee, I was able to stick it out until 2am last night.  I am quite surprised that I am still functioning after all that and a school Halloween Party - Go Me!!

My oldest is at the age where I no longer have a say in his Halloween costumes, hence the Batboy costume.  I was still able to keep it semi-homemade (I made the cape and appliques).  My youngest though, is still young enough to be influenced by mom, but as you can see he influenced by big brother too. As a happy medium we came up with - Recycle Man, saving the earth one recyclable at a time!!!  The best part of these costumes is that they now have new sweatshirts and pants that can be warn any time, not just on Halloween - total bonus!!

Read more on my blog.

Knickers!!

There is no way I would pay $10 for a pair of bonds knickers, when I can make them myself from my gigantic stash of tshirts. YAY!!

 

OOps note to self, remember to take before shots before cutting lol

 

Stretch lace 50c a metre from the market. Perfect fit and original.!!
 
 

remote control pillows and tutorials

Awhile back I made a remote control pillow for my brother out of one of his old Virginia Tech sweatshirts and he loved it. I've been wanting to make more and when my husband said he had some shirts to donate I grabbed them and whipped up these.

I really love how they turned out and they were so easy! I posted a tutorial on my blog.

You can also find a pattern for the sweatshirt pillow on my blog, too.

A little Coke, anyone?

A cute little skirt refashion and some crocheted legwarmers to top it all off. . .

Come by my blog for a giveaway going on until Sunday! 

Happy Halloween!

Brown Paper Packages

Crazy About Skirts!

Is

Isn't it great to be able to sew skirts?  

I see skirts in the store for $30, $40, $50+ and I imagine all of the clothing company executives getting rich, while some sweet girl in China probably stitched up 50 of these in a day and made $3.00.

Anyhoo, I'm really proud of being part of this community.  I really am trying to change my mindless consumerism.  Power to the chicks and dudes who make their own!

My sister-in-law gave me tons of calicoes and I've been stitching up skirts.  Come visit my blog for details - I promise that I won't rant about the clothing industry anymore today!

Happy Halloween

My son went to school as a magician this time round (compared to the chicken last year).  I made the cape using my old black dress and my husband's tie from our wedding. It was very simple and needed no cutting.  The elasticated area at the top made it sit on his shoulders like a collar.  He was very happy !

From Table Cloth to Skirt

I made this dreamy four-tiered, gypsy, boho skirt out of a table cloth. I had a lot of fun spinning and twirling around in it. I have more fun pictures on my blog.

Grandpa Cardigan to Sweater Jacket

I made this from a thrifted man's XL cardigan and some fine gauge cashmere scraps left over from another project. This took me forever and unfortunately, it looked far better in my head than it does in the flesh. (It occurs to me that not ironing it before taking pictures probably didn't really help it's cause any). Anyway, I do think I learned some new and valuable things about sweater refashioning. And it is very cozy. See more pictures and what I learned here.