Wardrobe Refashion

Introducing The Princess of Sewing

I would like to introduce my 9 year old daughter, Emily, to you. She has just started sewing on the machine. She has been handsewing for the past year, and has made several really neat projects. This past week she has completed lots of cool projects. She has made decorations for the Christmas tree; she made a skirt for underneath our Christmas tree and she just made her first skirt for herself from Butterick 4722. Here are a few pictures of some of these items. She is pictured here wearing the skirt she made. She has more photos and descriptions on her blog, along with tutorials for the tree decorations and the tree skirt. If you look closely at her tree, you will notice that she has decorated it with things she has made, rubber band balls, button flowers, sock doll, etc. She has her own sewing blog. She also has several things she has recently made that she will post after the holidays, decorated tote bags, hair ponies, painted pet and garden rocks, and sock dolls, rubber band balls, bean bags, hot pads, button flower bouquets all complete with tutorials. She'll be sewing up more skirts and a pillowcase soon as well. I hope you'll get a chance to stop by and look around and say hi while you're there. I know she would love to hear from you. And you may wish to consider signing up as her follower and putting her blog on your blog roll so that you can know when she has posted to help you better keep up with her. Thanks for looking, and I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

 Click here for Emily's blog. Click here for my sewing blog. And click here for my art blog.

     

Man's Pashmina Pullover to Leggings

Oh, dear! I have to post a get-out-of jail button. I bought two pairs of new jeans. I just couldn't find any thrifted ones and all of mine were umm...no longer respectable enough to wear for anything besides cleaning sewers or large engine repair.

In addition, this is the first refashion I've done in over a month. But, on the bright side, it was a success!

I used a large man's pullover and converted it to leggings without using a pattern. The former sleeves are now legs and the former neck opening is now the waist band. See how I did it at my blog (instructions and pictures).   

Project Pouch (part two)

I am so pleased to hear from you fillies that I am not the only one who is so passionate about sewing that they have to have more than one project on the go at once.

Following on from Part One of my DIY tutorial for these pouches I have now finished Part Two for you. Enjoy!

Bags of character

I made this messenger bag in no time the other day... well in very little time, at least. It's pretty big - enough to take folders, books etc.

The material is very stiff upholstery fabric that I bought for 25p in my favourite local charity shop a few months ago. I really like it - genuine retro I think. It was thick enough not to need any interlining which was good. I lined it with some old blue gingham duvet cover fabric.

The bag, which is lined, is made from one long bit of fabric sort of folded in thirds. First I seamed the lining in place, leaving a gap to turn the whole thing the right way out. Then I seamed it and pinched out the corners to give it a bit of width. Then I just made a simple strap and sewed it on. It takes about half a metre of fabric (cut lengthwise) and the same for the lining.

I haven't got a fastening on it, but you could always add a button and a big popper or something similar if you fancied it.

For those who are interested, I'll be posting a sort-of tutorial on my blog over the weekend.

Added information

Did you see this refashion of mine? 

I posted it yesterday (another picture of it, without belt) and mentioned my blog as a place where you could find some more information about making this. Without the link... and as far as I can tell, I can't edit my old post here on WR

So here it is. My blog is www.petitmainsauvage.blogspot.com (I know of the error in my French, it should be 'petite') and I'd love it if you paid me a visit there. However, I didn't post a clear-cut how-to for this creation, so I'll add some more information here. 

The pattern for the body of this cardigan looks like this:

 

I used the neck- and shoulderline from a fitted t-shirt pattern (cutting 1 cm wider because this is a bulky fabric) but cut straight down at the armpit, instead of using the waist shaping. The front edges extend about 2 cm past center front on the pattern. I put this together using my serger and then started playing around with the leftover fabric. The collar is made from the jumper's sleeves, sewn together where the ribbed wrist band used to be. To sew it on the cardy, I just pinned it together, right side of the collar to wrong side of the body and serged along the neckline. This way, when you turn the collar right side out, the seam is hidden under it (I figured that this stuff would be way too bulky for facings etc.). On this jumper refashion, I just serged all the outer edges and left them like that. 

I hope this explanation is of any help, and you'll be able to find the blog now. Thanks, for letting me know ladies!

Recycle Socks Into Legwarmers

My husband challenged me to recycle some socks and I must admit I didn't have any genius ideas. Somebody else came up with this one for me - turning socks into children's leg or armwarmers.

There is a simple How-To here on my blog as well as a giveaway for a couple of pairs I have made, admittedly out of new socks. I have plans to refashion some for my daughter tonight, so does that count? - The Sewing Dork

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.

Dollar Doll Clothes--from Underwear!

Fits 18 1/2 inch dolls

The foundation of this project?  Quality women's underwear seconds from the dollar store--cute fabric for a small investment!  The pattern pieces are cut with elastic attached, leaving fewer seams to sew.  See my blog for patterns and tutorial.  Briefly, I have to say this is the most fun recycle project I've done in ages!

Pin/Hair Clip Tutorial

I promised a tutorial for this project a really long time ago and I finally put one together. This is a really easy no-sew project that can be made entirely from scraps. Materials needed; sharp scissors, pin back or hair clips, fitted sheet corner elastic (you can also sandwich a fabric scrap over elastic and stretch it while you sew to create a "sheet corner"), bias tape (I use scraps of bias tape left over from other projects but you can also use a narrow strip of fabric folded lengthwise), hot glue gun, felt.


If you decide to make some hair clips try and get this variety. The glue gets into the little holes and is therefore more secure.


I use a lot of thrifted and vintage sheets for sewing projects and thought that corner elastic from fitted sheets would make really cute flowers.


Cut the elastic off of the corners and then trim it so that the raw edges are clean. They don't have to be perfect but you also don't want a bunch of longer bits of fabric sticking out from them.


Start applying the hot glue to one side of the raw edge and roll the elastic into a spiral. You can make these as large or small as you wish.


Here's a handy little pile of homemade bias tape bits. If you're using bias tape open it up and cut it right down the center so that you're left with 2 folded strips. If you don't have bias tape or want to use up fabric scraps just cut a strip of fabric an inch wide and then fold it wrong sides together and press.


Apply a bead of glue to the wrong side of the bias tape along the raw edge and begin applying it to the elastic spiral. The right side of the bias tape should be facing out.


Continue gluing the tape until the spiral is completely wrapped. You can fold back the raw edge of the tape or leave it as it.


Apply glue to the bottom or your spiral and attach a piece of felt.


Trim the felt to the size of your spiral.


Cut a few leaf shapes from the felt. You can use pinking shears, or just texture the edge by clipping the felt. The options are limitless.


Glue the leaves to the bottom of your spirals.


Apply a bead of glue on top of the leaf edges and then sing your hair clips into the glue. If you're using a pin back just apply a longer bead of glue and sink the pin back into it.

You want to immediately place a small circle of felt over the hot glue and press down. This will keep your pin back or hair clips in place.

NinjaEema

Moth-eaten sweater = hotwater bottle cover!

Okay, so as far as making fashion goes, I have been pretty slack, but that doesn't mean I haven't been reducing, reusing or recycling! I had an old jumper (or sweater for Americans) that was totally felted and massively moth-eaten. But it was pure cream coloured wool! And had these beautiful cables on the front, that the moths hadn't yet chomped on.

So I decided to cut the uneaten pieces into hot water bottle covers. If you look carefully below you can see some small darker spots on the jumper. That's where the moths had chewed through. Particularly on the sleeves.I haven't decided what to do with the rest of the jumper, but I just can't bear to throw it out. Maybe mittens?

Anyway here is the jumper after I have cut the pieces for the hot water bottle covers. I just traced around the hot water bottle to get the right size and shape. I decided the ribbing at the bottom of the jumper would be great for around the top of the hot water bottle cover.

So I have my two pieces, front and back:

Sadly, even these have a couple of  little moth holes... Never mind, I will darn those.

Then I stitched the pices together inside out using the sewing machine. You can do this with lots of knits, even if they aren't felted. Needless to say, felted knits have less chance of getting a run or dropped stitch in them.

As you can see, there is no unravelling of the knitting because it is felted. (Unintenitonally, I might add!)

Then you turn it inside out and slip it over your hot water bottle! Voila! An Aran hot water bottle cover!

If you're worried about the cover coming off the water bottle (although its pretty snug - mine hasn't come out of its cover), you can add some buttons and loops from front to back at the top (over the bottle's "shoulders") to stop the bottle sliding out.