What I Wore Sunday: Week 34

…52 weeks of shaking up the wardrobe…

The Rules:

1. Wear a different outfit every Sunday.

2. Incorporate at least one article of clothing or accessory that was either refashioned, sewn myself, or handmade.

3. Outfits can be worn more than once; just not the same way.

4. Think outside the box and be creative!

This is what I wore Sunday:

Cute skirt, right?  Wanna see what it looked like before I got to it?

Yep.  It was an old lady nightgown I got at the thrift store for $3.00.  It was brand spankin’ new and even had the original price tags on it.  It was originally $5.00 from Woolworth’s--a store that hasn’t been in this area since I moved here 22 years ago.  It was long gone before my family moved here.

Want some close ups of my new skirt?

 

I kept the original side pocket.  I made a belt out of the sleeves. 

I shirred the waistband, and added a flounce on the bottom of the skirt.

The verdict?!  I love it!  Not only is it super cute and fun, but it is so so comfortable!  :)

(Well, duh!  It was a nightgown…)

…and I promise; that feature post is coming soon.  Soon.  Very soon.  We’ve just been dealing with a lot of health issues in my family.  No fun.  I’m hoping I’ll have time sometime soon.

Anywho…on to the party!  What did you wear?!

Link up to anything you have refashioned or sewn yourself.  It doesn’t have to be dressy, and it doesn’t have to be worn on a Sunday.  It doesn’t even have to be worn by you.  Show it off!

• No links to shops or giveaways, please.

• Link back to Crafty Cousins on your blog too, okay?!

• Bonus points for following Crafty Cousins or liking us on Facebook!  :)

• Tell your friends about the What I Wore Sunday Link Party.  What’s a party without lots of partiers?

Can’t wait to see what you’ve got!  :)

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Tie me up

Yesterday, I’m at Walmart, and I totally see someone I recognize from Blog World. It’s Megan from Brassy Apple, and she is just so nice! She took a picture of us & posted it on her Facebook page. She always has such cute refashion ideas. When I first found her site, I easily spent an hour pinning great ideas. Plus, she has her own TV series on My Craft Channel. She’s great, so you should go over and meet her too!

I just saw the cutest flowers for sale over at Plaid Barn. Aluminum flowers! I'm buying a few sets!

On to the project...Long story short, I have a lot of ties. A plethora. An overabundance. What to do with all those ties? I scoured the Internet and Pinterest, and these 3 pictures inspired me.

This is a clutch you can buy here for $68.

This link was just for the little hearts, not for the cute bag. Sad.

This link was for a cell phone holder from ties.
All of the inspiration was very cute, so I combined them all to get this.

See the black and pink tie in the middle/side? That was the main inspiration to the colors I used. I pretty much fell in love with that tie when I looked through the box of ties I have. Seriously. Over a hundred ties, easily. So I sorted through and grabbed ones that had any sort of pink on them, gray, and some black to fill in the extra space. First thing I did was lay out my ties in different ways to see what layout I liked, and the order of the ties. Then, I decided to go with the skinny end of the tie because I liked how it lay the best. I cut all the ties to be 17 1/2”long from the point to the end. Why not 18”? Well, I don’t know. Oh, the inspiration tie was skinny on both ends, so I used the skinny end as the edge, and the wider end as the middle. Make sense? Anyway, after I cut them all down, I had to decide how I wanted to sew them together. You can either layer them, and just sew right over the tie, or you can unpick them all, sew them together at the sides, and then sew them back together. The first inspiration piece layered them, so you can see the stitch lines. I decided to make it harder and do the unpick method. So unpick them all I did.

Funny thing about this tie. I thought it was such a pretty pattern, kind of a damask, but I looked closer and realized it’s skulls. But you can’t really tell on the finished product unless you know what/where to look. Then I sewed them all together. Obviously not perfect. But, after I steam ironed them, you couldn’t tell. So I sewed them all together as I was going, in the order I chose, sewing on the fold as best as I could. Then, I sewed them back together on the inside, except for the  outside edges.

At this point, I just have a rectangle with one end of jagged ties. I pressed the other end 1/2” and sewed it down so I had a finished end. I didn’t get a picture but you can see the finished edge in this picture:

At this point in time, I decided to add some pockets on the inside. I cut off the wide end of one of the ties and used it for a cell phone holder on one side, like the last inspiration picture.

And stitched that in by hand.

(warning, dark picture) Then, I took 2 bottoms of other ties and made hearts the way the 2nd picture showed me how. I sewed them onto white fabric, so I didn’t use fusible interfacing like she did. That way, anything I put in wouldn’t get lost in the different parts of the ties.

Then I trimmed off the white fabric and hand stitched those on the other side of the clutch. By the way, I hadn’t yet sewn up the sides, but I had figured out how tall I wanted to, and it was 5 1/4”, so I made sure my pockets were in the right area with some pins to mark the bottom. I was making this up as I went so no picture

Now, it’s time to sew up the 2 outside edges. I pinned them right sides together, clutch inside out, and sewed up on the fold line. Then, I sewed the inside seam shut by hand.

As a final touch, I had a bit of the favorite inspiration tie left, so I made a handle for the side 11” long, folded over and sewn in with machine. I just went over the line I made when I finished the end.

And lastly, I hand sewn some snaps on, 1 in the middle, and 2 on the edge, and it was finished!

I used it at church this week, and people were doing double takes, and then asking if it was ties. So fun! It fits in my new pink purse perfectly, but it works great by itself too! Last word of warning….Don’t go raiding your boy-toys closet until he gives the okay. I don’t want to get in trouble!!
Linking up to:
Skip to My Lou
SNAP! Creativity
36th Avenue
Tatertots and Jello
I Heart Naptime

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Button Front Skirt

…from a button front shirt!

These cute little skirts are perfect for Summer play!  They’re also a great way to thin out your wardrobe and give you an excuse to go shopping!

I have this awesome friend who cuts my hair for sewing projects.  She’s my personal hair dresser, and I’m her personal seamstress.  It works for us!

Anyway, she wanted some skirts for her little gal, and I had these shirts that I’d had in my closet FOREVER. 

I loved the fabric, but hated the shirts.  You know what we do when we have that situation!  Refashion!  :)

Start by cutting the tops of the shirts off.  You need to add an extra two inches for the waistband casing.

Serge or zig zag across the tops of the shirts.

Stitch the button closures closed. 

Also, if the shirts don’t have a straight hem--meaning that the shirts are longer in the front and back than they are on the sides--be sure to even up that hem.  Unless you want a skirt that is longer in front and back than on the sides.

Turn the skirt inside out and measure two inches for the casing.  Pin it into place. Sew around the bottom of the casing and leave a small opening for your elastic. 

Measure your victim’s waist and cut the elastic about an inch smaller than the waist measurement.  Using a safety pin in one end of the elastic, thread it through the opening in the casing.

Once the elastic is threaded through the casing, sew it together and sew the casing shut.

When you’ve done that, evenly distribute the fabric over the elastic.  You can stop here, or you can secure the elastic to the skirt by sew.  I do this just to be sure that the elastic doesn’t roll later.

Just sew a short, straight seam at the front, back and sides of the skirt.

Trim your threads, and you’re done!

Your little lady will look adorable and be comfortable in these cute, breezy Summer skirts!

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Bold Stripe Shirt Refashion

I’ve been going through all of my clothes and if I haven’t worn them recently, and it’s in season, it went into a box to either DI or refashion. Here are 2 shirts I decided to refashion.Do your shirts tend to shrink up? Get shorter or something? These did.

Now, if you want to try something like this, it’s important they’re either the same brand/size shirt, or match in size/width so you don’t get weird bunching and such. Does anyone remember my Britta shirt I refashioned here? I did the same idea, but more bold, and I did horizontal stripes instead of the diagonals.

First, I chopped off the bottom of the shirt that I wanted to be the mail body. I left about 1” at the V so I’d have room for the seam allowance, and it didn’t look weird. Make sure your line is straight! Next, I started chopping up the stripes. I just went with the width of my ruler (5”) because I’m lazy cool like that.

Once I had my stripes, I laid out my shirt to see if I liked the overall look. (make sure you know which side is front and which is back. The seams are usually a little different!)

Then, I matched up seams and middles and pinned the stripes together.

The double pins are to keep my seams going the right direction. Then, you sew. Be careful while you’re sewing so you don’t stretch it out and make wonky seams. (true word, for real) Press the seams open on the inside

And then topstitch on the outside with a double needle and the colors of thread (or just sew twice if you don’t have a double needle)

I like to wash it to make sure all the threads and what not are off. So here it is with my newest pair of cut-off shorts (I was so sad to see those pants go *sniff*)

And from the side:

And with some of my favorite new pants:

So what clothes need a facelift? This could make a cute skirt too!

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DIY Appliques

So, my daughter had grown out of her pajamas. I went through my patterns, and didn’t have any that were the right size. So I used her little ones as a pattern, and made her some out of the pink fabric she chose. Guess what? She won’t wear them because “they’re not soft”. *sigh*. So, I found this gray sweat pant material in my hoard fabric stash, and asked her if this was soft enough. She told me she loved how soft it was, but it’s not pretty. I played around with dyeing it, but decided to try a different idea. You know what appliques are? They can get a bit pricy, right? So I made some. It was really easy. Grab some scraps of fabric and fusible (iron-on) interfacing. Put your interfacing on the back of the scraps.

Then cut out the shapes you want from the interfaced fabric.

I cut out a flower and lots of circles/ovals. They weren’t perfect. I didn’t care.
Then I laid them onto the pants/shirt that I had cut out but not sewn yet. I didn’t want to deal with accidently sewing through a pant leg or something. I zigzag stitched (my machine was set to a short wide stitch, you may have to experiment to get the look you want) all the shapes on to the fabric. I actually changed the thread color because of the look I wanted, but you could do it all the same color.

If you don’t sew quite on the edge, you can go back and trim some excess fabric.  Notice the pink polka dot one? It has extra fabric by the turquoise fabric.

So I trimmed it off. Here is the finished look:

And another part:

So her pajamas turned out cute, and she’s worn them every night since I made them. I’d say it’s a success!

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