Big, Big, Big

Hello Readers. I love hand-me-downs. You know that if you have read this blog before. Today's project is an outfit made of 3 big hand-me-downs that needed a little help. As you can see the pants were way too long and the sweater was too big all over. We'll get to the brown shirt too. 

I decided to cut some fabric out of the sweater. I cut a wedge shape out of each side. You can see the line where I marked my cut in the picture on the left. This sweater frayed like crazy and I decided to use some bias tape to wrap the cut edges. I used my machine to stitch it into place. It worked well and made for easy sewing.

It made a little cap sleeve. The sides have a little waist indent now I think it will look less big and shapeless. 

Here is a great pair of cords that I thought would be warm in this second Winter we are having here where I live. These pants fit in the hips but the waist was too big and the legs are ridiculous.

The waist was gaping open at the back when I tried them on. I hate that. Sometimes when pants fit me around the hips, the waistband is too large. This is my quick fix for that problem. I made two small tucks in the waistband. I made one on each side right at the seam. It made the waist taper in and stopped the gaping. The fit was much better.

I folded the fabric in and used my machine to stitch a small triangle shape in the waistband. It was easy but I had to sew slowly or my needle would break. It took just a minute.

I also shortened them a few inches. The new hem was bulky and needed to be ironed before I could wear them. Ironing made a huge difference. I should iron more often.....nah.

The pants are great after some alterations. The waist is smaller but comfortable and the legs are short enough for me now. Big improvement.

Here is the brown shirt. My mom passed this on to me months ago. It looks a little baggy but I was afraid to make it smaller because it has no stretch. If I made it smaller it wouldn't be as comfortable. I didn't love the shapeless look of it but it is heavy and warm. It is freezing outside and this is a great warm shirt.

I decided to make an elastic waist using the finished hem at the bottom of the shirt. It is a tube all around the bottom of the shirt. I made a tiny cut in the hem and slid some elastic around the shirt and tied the two ends together. I made the size of the elastic to draw in the bottom of the shirt.

Here is finished shirt with the drawn in waist, it matches the elastic wristbands that were already there. I left the rest the shirt just as it was. 

The elastic at the waist brought the bottom of the shirt up a little. It doesn't look as long and seems to fit better even though I didn't change the size anywhere else.

I went out that day and got a haircut at the fabulous Oxygen Salon in Rockville, MD. I recommend Stephanie, she fixed my crazy chopped up hair. Thanks Stephanie!

That's it for today. Thanks for reading, now go make something fun for yourself.