Make a Coat From a Blanket

 Hello Readers. I found this wool throw blanket at a thrift store and I loved the soft colors. Wool is great for keeping you warm but it's also a natural fabric and it breathes and lets air circulate. I thought it would make a great light-weight jacket for fall.  

This turned out to be a fun plaid jacket. 

 

I wanted multi-colored buttons for my jacket just for fun. I tried to coordinate the colors with the colors of the jacket. Similar buttons here. 

 

I started getting my throw blanket in position for cutting. I made this based off the "Bog Coat" pattern by Matchy Matchy Sew Club but I went off course and followed my own plan. I knew this blanket could be frayed at any edge I cut and that was part of my design plan. I cut the coat and folded the sides in. That made the sleeve and front of the coat. I also cut a belt for the waist from the top of the blanket to start. 

 

The front of the jacket needed to be cut for the neck opening. I cut that opening with my sharp sewing scissors to get a clean cut. Dull scissors will not cut well.

 

I also cut the round neck hole as directed by the pattern. Then I started to deviate from the pattern.

  

I started to fray the front edges of the bodice of the coat. I wanted all the edges to fray like the edges of the blanket were frayed originally. 

 

You can see the frayed edge here. I wanted to use these buttons to close the front of my coat so I planned out where they would go and where the button holes would be. 

 

I sewed the buttons on by hand. 

 

I made my button holes and used my seam ripper to open them up. Similar here. 

  

I attached the belt in 3 places by sewing through the buttons, the belt and the coat itself. This keeps the belt in place but didn't require any extra fabric to make belt loops. I didn't have any extra fabric so this worked for me.  

 

Here is my jacket. It could be long like this but I thought shorter would be better for me. so I went back to work. 

 

I cut about 10 inches off the bottom of my jacket. The fabric I cut off would make a fabulous matching scarf. Did I hem them? No. 

 

I pulled the threads on the edge of the cut fabric and took 6-8 threads out of the weave so that I would have the same frayed look at the hem of the coat and the edges of the scarf. I really liked the little fringed edge of the original blanket and wanted it all over the coat and scarf.

 

My jacket is great for cooler weather but it doesn't weigh me down. It's perfect for early fall. I love it. Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself. 
 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mending a Sweater

 Hello Readers. I found this vest at a thrift store in NYC. It was cute and I brought it home. I washed it and a few holes showed up. That happens sometimes. Let's mend this sweater vest. 

This sweater was wool and it was definitely worth mending. 

I got this sweater from a thrift store and it was so cute. I knew it would be warm and cozy. 

I brought it home and washed it. Normally you can wash wool or it can shrink. This vest was already felted/washed/shrunken. Sometimes people wash wool on purpose to get a tighter weave in the material. I don't know if that was the original design but that is what I had. 

When I washed it I noticed a few small holes. That's life. I wanted to mend the sweater so I decided to add simple little flowers over the holes. 

I don't know how to embroider anything fancy so I made very simple flower shapes in a color that didn't attract too much attention.

My little floral design covered the little holes and that was what mattered to me. 

 

There were two little holes along the hemline. 

There was a couple tiny holes on my shoulder too. 

 

The vest was still cozy and warm. Thanks for reading along, now go mend something fun for yourself. 

I made a mess.

 Hello Readers. I like to be cozy in the evenings. I thought I could make a lounge robe/house dress kind of thing. I had this beautiful Piece of a vintage bedspread. It did not work out at all. I was so disappointed. 

I didn't know it but I was about to ruin this fabric.   

I used this pattern. I thought it would be an easy sewing project. I was wrong.  

I wanted that flower design on the back of my robe. 

I started cutting my pieces out. No problems yet. 

I had all my pieces and I started to sew them together. 

 

I had some trouble sewing across those chenille pompoms. It really threw me off and I lost my focus. The robe dress thing looked too big. I should have tried to iron it and see how it felt to wear. I wanted a zipper up the front but it looked too large. I added a belt to see if that helped. It didn't. 

 

Here is the disaster. I tried to connect the front. But I was way off where I needed to be and I sewed over the design. I cut the excess off without double-checking! I couldn't even fix it!

Now I couldn't figure out a way to fix it. If I ever do figure out a way, I will come back and let you know. 

Be careful while you are sewing out there.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simple Appliqued Sweatshirt

 Hello Readers. Today is election day. I hope you can get out and vote if you are in the U.S. I wanted to make a shirt for the day that went with the voting theme. (I really love a shirt with a theme.) I wanted spell out the word vote but this idea would work for any word. (Thankful for Thanksgiving, Love for Valentine's Day, Luck for St. Patrick's Day...) I don't have a fancy embroidery sewing machine so let me show you how I did this.

Vote!

 

This sweatshirt was plain and simple and it would be a perfect base for adding some letters. 

 

I had a small piece of cotton fabric with the names of the states. It would be perfect for my letters. And the fabric looked pretty good with my sweatshirt. 

 

The thing that made this project so simple was fusible interfacing. Follow the instructions on the packaging to iron this onto the fabric you want to make your letters out of. 

I used my iron to fuse the interfacing to my fabric. I put my fabric face down and put the bumpy side facing the fabric. I used some scrap white cotton as a barrier between that and my iron. I made my 4 small rectangles because I knew I was going to make 4 letters.

 

The interfacing made the fabric a little thicker and stiffer. It would be easier to handle, cut and sew like this. 

I used a ruler to help me sketch out my letters. I made boxy letters with straight lines. They were easy to draw and they will be easier to sew to my sweatshirt. I used pencil because it will wash out easily.

I cut out all my letters following the pencil lines I drew. 

I arranged my letters on my sweatshirt and made sure I liked the arrangement. These are off center for 2 reasons.

 1. It looked more fun to me. 

2. If I try to line the letters up perfectly straight and they shift even a little in the sewing process, it will be very obvious. Doing it this way will make it easier later. 

I pinned the letters to the sweatshirt. I put pins in all around the letters and made sure they were in different directions to keep the letters in place the best I could while I was sewing.

I used a wide zigzag stitch to attach the letters to the shirt. I sewed all around the edges of the letters. This will keep the edges from fraying and keep the shirt in good condition wash after wash. 

I used different color thread for each letter just for fun. The colors you use are up to you. 

When I was done it was a little wrinkled and the letters had shifted a bit in a couple spots but it's OK. I am not trying to launch a rover to Mars, it doesn't have to be perfect. We are here for a good time, don't stress. I loved how my shirt turned out.

 

 I ironed the whole shirt to smooth out the letters.

My shirt was finished. 

 

Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself. And vote if you can.

***Year End Update***- I liked this lettering so much. I planned to try it again.

 

 

 

Embroider Your T-Shirt

 Hello Readers. T-shirts are usually simple and sometimes even a little plain. That is part of their charm but let's see if we can dress one up in a fun way. I wanted to add some detail and color to this shirt. Let me show you what I did. It was simple and easy to recreate even with no real embroidery skills.

This is a fun way to jazz up a T-shirt.

You will need a t-shirt to begin this project. You will also need some embroidery thread and an large embroidery needle. 

 

I got my embroidery thread from Walmart but you can get it at any sewing supply or craft shop. It is inexpensive and there are so many colors to choose from. 

 

I used a large embroidery hoop to hold the front of my t-shirt while I stitch. You could try to do this without the hoop but I think it will be much harder to hold and stitch the shirt. 

 

I just needed the hoop to hold the design area on the front of my shirt, not the back of the shirt. If the design was smaller, I could have used a smaller hoop. 

 

I put the thick strand of embroidery thread through the eye of the needle. The embroidery thread is actually several strands of thread together. I used all of them so the stitches would be thick and really stand out on my shirt. 

 

I stitched in and out along the edges of the letters on my shirt in light blue. You can see I left space between the stitches. This was really simple sewing and didn't require any serious skills or training.

 

I used a darker blue to fill in the stitches between the light blue stitches. I made large stitches because my design was large and I wanted the stitches to really have a lot of visual pop and two colors really pops a little more than one color. 

 

I stitched along all the lettering to give each letter a blue outline. When I was done stitching around each letter, I tied a knot inside the shirt and cut off the excess thread. 

 

I wanted all the lettering to have the blue outlines so I took my time and stitched all the letters. This took almost an hour. I watched TV while I worked. ( A "Murder She Wrote" re-run.)

 

I cut my shirt around the neck, sleeves and waist. I like to open up and loosen the neckline on most of my t-shirts like this.

 

My shirt was finished and I liked the blue colors I picked. You can pick any color you like but some embroidery thread can leach dye in the washer. I chose this dark color shirt because it needed some color added but it also would hide any trace of blue dye that gets on the t-shirt fabric of the shirt. If you want to embroider a white shirt, you could try to wash your embroidery thread before you do any sewing so that the excess dye would be removed in the wash. 

 

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