The Vintage Bike Shirt

Hello Readers. June 3rd is "World Bike Day". It seemed like a good time to re-post this shirt from 2019. It had vintage bikes all over and was so cute.

I was inspired by this peach shirt. It doesn't look very special so why did I like this shirt?

 

It didn't look like much from far away. It was a little too baggy to wear to work and the 3/4 length sleeves were almost to my wrists. It needed some help. 

And the pants? They almost fit at the waist but the length was out of control.

I loved this shirt because of the print. There were polka dots and these fabulous vintage bikes. I love vintage bikes!

I have a couple. My sister-in-law gave me one that actually folds in half. The other I got from the side of the road. It had a sign on it that said free. When I stopped my car a lady came out of her house and told me to please take it. I love them both.

I looked at the original shirt and decided that I wanted shorter sleeves. It is really hot outside. August is always super hot.

I took the sides in so the fit would be less baggy and I made short sleeves.

The short sleeves seemed a little plain.

 

 I added a button from the original cuff and pinched the sleeve together to gather the sleeve up a little bit.

Here are the pants my daughter gave me. They would be great for work. I decided to make another pair of cropped pants to survive the summer heat. My daughter told me to put them on inside out so she could pin them for me. Look how much extra fabric there was! She laughed and laughed while she pinned the hem for me. Then she stuck me with a pin.

I took them in just a little and I made them much shorter.

This was a great summer outfit for work. It looks like I am showing of my bicep but I am just pointing to the sleeve. My biceps are nothing I want to really point out to anyone.

Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

***Year End update-  I thought of this as a summer shirt but I wore it in winter under a sweater. The little bikes are so cute. I love it.

The Vintage Bicycle T-shirt

Hello Readers. I receive hand-me-downs on occasion and it is always fun to try and make them fit and look like they are my clothes and not someone else's. Let's talk about it.

Before and after.

This shirt was clearly not right. I don't look stylish or even like I know what size I am. But I love this shirt because it had old fashioned bikes on it. 

I have a thing for vintage bicycles. My sister-in-law gave me this one. I ride it with my kids for fun. 

I want this to fit well. I cut some fabric off each side of the shirt. How did I know how much to cut off?

 

I used a shirt that I liked the fit of as a guide for my new side seams.

 

I used matching thread in my serger to make my new side seams. If you don't have a serger, use a zigzag stitch on your sewing machine. 

 

I put the right sides together and lined up the edges. Then I stitched from the sleeve to the hem. 

 

I also Adjusted the size of the jeans at the waist and hip. I wanted the jeans to be loose but also stay up at my waist.

 

Denim is thick and it breaks my needles a lot so I don't use my serger for jeans. I usually try the jeans on inside out and mark where the new seam needs to be. I sew a straight seam and try them on right-side out. If I like the fit, THEN I cut the excess fabric off. If the jeans are too loose, I can sew a new seam to make them smaller. (If it's too tight I can unpick the stitches and try again. If I cut the excess off and it's too tight, I can't fix that.) When I am done sizing and trying them on, I can cut the excess off. Then I head back to the sewing machine and use a zigzag stitch on the edge to keep the seams from fraying inside the jeans. This will make the new seams neater and stronger over time. 

 

Everything fits well. 

 

It was a little too cold and snowy for a bike ride this day. 

 

My daughter said we should go thrifting and we saw this wine sign that was as big as I am. Where would anyone put this? It would take over the whole room. It was huge. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

 

***Year End Update***- This is still a fun shirt. But I do not know where it is...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Reversable Wrap Dress That Put Up A Fight

 Hello Readers. I thought I could make a fun reversible wrap dress. I chose the wrong fabric and I messed it big time, and I managed to save it at the end. I will tell you all about it. 

 

 This fabric was so cute, I knew I wanted a dress out of it. As usual I barely had enough and I messed up along the way.

I used the 1356 pattern from Simplicity. I thought it would be so great because it was reversible and it was a wrap style. It's like 2 dresses in 1 and it would always fit.

I cut out the pattern pieces. There was a front, a back and a belt piece. So far so good. 

I didn't realize that I was making a mistake here. The only way to fit the 2 dress pieces on the fabric was to turn them different ways. This means that the design will be upside down on one of these pieces. I can't believe I did not see this.

You can see the front images are upside down because of how I cut out the pieces. You can also see  mistake #2. I also cut out the same pieces from a pale pink lining fabric. I put them together and it was so bulky, I didn't think it looked good. The sewing themed fabric was heavier than it should have been for this pattern. I decided to take the lining out and try to keep the sewing fabric by itself. It was thicker and it wrapped around itself enough that I didn't think it would be see through.

 

I did a lot of cutting to get the lining out. I also may have said some bad words. 

 

The lining was out. I had the basic dress shape intact but I had to finish all the edges and stitch them down. 

 

I couldn't fix the upside down images so I decided to turn the dress around and wear it backwards. It looked better that way. 

 

This is how it looked from the back. The tie looks nice and the upside down fabric is mostly covered by the way it wraps around.

 

It turned out OK. I like it a lot. The fabric is so fun. And nothing is perfect. I can ignore the mistakes. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

 ***Year End Update- This dress was a tough project but I love it. I wore it with layers in cooler weather. I also found a use for the lining in a later project. 

*2025 Me-Made-May update. I still love this dress. 

 

 

 

 

 

Plaid Shirt

 Hello Readers. I have had this XL men's shirt for a while. I liked the seersucker fabric and wanted to use if for a summer top. You can see here what I did to make a top for myself. 

Before and after. 

My son told me it looked like I was wearing someone's grandpas's clothes. He wasn't wrong. I liked the fabrics and was determined to make something new from the materials

I used this shirt as a pattern to cut out a new shirt. I cut it at the bottom so the hem of the blue shirt could be the hem of my new shirt.

I used my seam ripper to remove the front pockets.

I used my serger to sew the sides and shoulder seams together.

I cut the sleeves off what was left of the shirt. I also cut the sleeves down in size and length. 

I sewed the sleeves in with my serger. 

 

The new sleeves look different. I wanted small cap sleeves. I thought that would look more feminine and like this was my shirt and not grandpa's. 

I cut the pants down as well. I cut the pockets out of the way and cut the sides of the pants to make them more narrow. I cut the length so that I would have shorts instead of pants. 

Now I has a new summer top and shorts. 

This was a great outfit for a day at the beach. (And some ice cream.) Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.

Use a Book As a Vase

 Hello Readers. I really liked this idea and couldn't wait to make this project. My thought was that it was a great use for older, damaged, no longer read-able books. (Please don't use your great grandmother's first edition, valuable, family heirloom. You should save and insure that.) This project was meant for books that your kids liked but damaged through reading over and over again or an older book that has lost some pages over the years. 

A book as a vase? Read on and see.

 

Here is the book I wanted to use. It was published in 1963. I really liked the illustration on the cover. It has such a great retro look. I did read the book and it was comically unrealistic. It was marketed to young girls as an adventurous idea of what they can do when they grow up. It was so innocent and sweet, I don't think Hollywood is anything like this book but I am not an expert.
 

I had a few artificial flowers that I wanted to use. These colors worked with the color scheme of my book. You can use any colors you like.

 

The pages need to be folded or turned in. My book had quite a few illustrations through-out the book. I wanted those to show so I turned my pages in at the places that would show some of my favorite drawings. 

 

I used a glue gun with glue sticks to add a few small blobs right in the center of the book. This will secure the pages and keep them turned in towards the book. That gives me a spot for my flower stem and shows the illustrations that I like.

 

I just put a few blobs in the center of the open book and tucked the pages into the glue. 

 

Now my book is able to stand by itself with the turned in pages stuck in place. I can add the flowers now.

 

I put a floral piece into each rolled up group of pages. I pushed the stem down until it was steady and in place.

 

I added the flowers and bent the flowers out and made the whole group of flowers look as full as possible.

I wanted the arrangement to be as large as possible. 

 

I liked the color combinations and the drawings together from this view of the inside of the book.

 

I also liked the colorful cover with the flowers too. 

 

This book is a bit different. A few inner pages were cut in half height before they were glued in place and the flowers stand lower in the book. 

 

This is a fun kids book that got damaged and was missing some pages. The colorful illustrations are fun with the floral arrangement. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself.