Comfort Clothes

 Hello Readers. How are you? Are you a little panicked at the thought of the United States in a complete melt-down? Yes, me too. I have been eating comfort food and wearing comfort clothes. And avoiding too much news so I don't go crazy. My post today is about comfort clothes. Flannel is soft, fuzzy, comfortable and comforting. I hope so anyway. 

This refashion started months ago when I saw these 2 shirts at the store. I liked the plaid and solid combination. Did I buy one? No. You know by now that I am cheap as heck and I didn't buy anything. But I thought about how I could make something like this for myself. 

I had a gray and white flannel that was handed down to me from a friend (Thanks Miriam!) and a gray and white hoodie that has been around for ages. Guess what? They are getting married!

 I started by cutting the flannel shirt open in the front and removing the button placket. 

I used my dress form to arrange and pin the flannel and the hoodie together.

I used my sewing machine to connect the hoodie zipper and hood to the flannel shirt. I only connected the zipper and the hood. The rest of the hoodie was cut away.

I love that it has a zipper. It is so easy to layer and remove if I get hot. 

I can also show a little of the Baby Yoda shirt my mom gave me for Christmas! (Thanks Mom!)

I can still tuck the shirt in as well. What more could I want? (Maybe social and political stability? That is for another blog post I think.)

Thanks for reading along, now go make something fun for yourself. Or go eat some comfort food. Whatever helps you get through these times. I went for chips and brownies. 

Peace.

***Chickie's Year End Review- I loved this plaid shirt. I accidentally bleached it with a load of towels and it got ruined.

The $1 Outfit

 Hello Readers. I love bright colors but I always fall back into the habit of wearing black. Black is easy to wear, it can be dressed up or down, and my dog's hair doesn't show on it. I think that is a huge plus.

Let's start by talking about the sweater. This was my husbands sweater. It is from a job he had about 5 years ago. He got laid off and didn't have any emotional attachment to this sweater or company. I liked the style and color. The size and the logo were not working for me so that is what I wanted to change.

The first thing I did was change the size. I am smaller than my husband so this sweater needed to be smaller too.  

I wanted to cover the logo. I was afraid if I tried to unpick the stitches I would ruin the sweater. I had this big flower I could use. But where did this flower come from? That's a good question.

This flower came attached to a Tieks shoe box. My daughter bought a pair of shoes a while ago and this flower was around the box like a bow on a gift box. (This is the kind of thing that I keep and figure out how to use later.) The flower had an elastic band attached to it. I cut the elastic off the flower. Snip, snip.

I used a large safety pin to wear this flower like a broach. It covered the logo perfectly and I was able to take it off and wash the sweater.

These pants were about $1 at a bag sale. (Do your thrift stores have bag sales? It is usually whatever fits in a bag for a set price.) These pants were almost working but the waist was the worst. That's OK, I can fix that.

When I alter pants and jeans I usually make new side seams to change the size of the pants. The only difficulty with this method if the metal rivets. In this picture you can see where I marked the rivet so I could sew around it. If you sew over the rivet you will break your needle and possibly damage the shaft of the sewing machine. (I have done both of those things.)

I did not need to drastically change the size I just needed to alter the fit. 

 

 

These black patterned jeans just needed a little tweak to make them fit well at the waist. I hate when the waistband gapes open so fixing these made me feel better. I also tapered the calves to make these into skinny jeans.

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

***Chickie's Year End Review- I liked these pants but outgrew them with all my Covid snacking. I still wear the sweater a lot.

Dressember Dresses; The New Year's One

 2020 is ending and I don't think anyone is sorry to see it go. This is the last dress for Dressember 2020. (IT's also the first of 2021!) Being a part of this fundraising effort every year is inspiring and it makes me hope for a better world in 2021. You can go to Dressember.org and see what they are trying to accomplish. Human trafficking is a growing issue and ignoring it makes it grow even more.  

My last dress of the month is a skirt. I know that is cheating a little to make a 2 piece outfit. 2020 has been hard on my thrifting game so please have patience with me. 

My daughter gave me this sparkly top. I thought it would be great for New Year's Eve. I thought Covid would be gone and we could go do something fun to celebrate the new year. (I was wrong.)

 

This top just needed a little change at the armholes. It was a little bit loose and I wanted the shape to be a little more defined. This was a simple change, no big deal. 

 

Let's move on the the star of the show. The sweater. My husband got a hole in this sweater and was going to get rid of it. I loved the sage color and the weight of the material. I decided to make a skirt for myself out of it.

 

 

I tried to measure the size skirt I would need and held the sweater up to myself. Then I just started cutting and made a simple pencil skirt. I was counting on the stretch of the sweater to act as a waistband. The hem of the sweater is the waist of my skirt.

 

I thought this outfit would be cozy and that I could dress it up a little. 

 

Y'all know that I didn't need to because I am home doing nothing dressy. No make-up or heels would be needed for this night. 

 

This was our big celebration. We also played games and watched "Jumanji".

 

I hope your night was safe and I wish you a 2021 full of blessings and renewed hope. 

See you next year.

***Chickie's Year End Review- I liked the color of this sweater so much but this was not my favorite refashion of 2021.

Dressember Dresses; The Shirt One

 Hello Readers.Every year when I am wearing dresses and ties for Dressember I try not to let it be one more thing on my To-Do list. It can be and should be a fun way to raise awareness and funding to fight human trafficking. You can form a team to work with and keep each other motivated. My daughter and I are on a team called the D-Group. I also borrow all my ties from my husband and older son. They have to help me tie them because I can't seem to get it right. It's a whole family effort.

 My family helped with this refashion too. The blue shirt is from my husband and the plaid shirt is from my mom.

 My husband didn't want this blue shirt and it was a little worn at the collar. That was fine because I didn't need the collar.

I cut the the shirt across the chest and used the bottom of it for my dress.

This plaid shirt from my mom was the perfect coordinating top half of my new dress.

I did some pinning to connect the big men's shirt with the ladies shirt.

I did some pleating to make the 2 shirts work together.

 These 2 made a nice combination. And I was able to put it all together fairly quickly. These shirts didn't have any stretch to them so I had to leave the dress loose enough to be comfortable and allow me to move around.

Thanks for reading along, now go check out Dressember.org to learn more about their important work.

Dressember Dresses; The Tight One

 Hello Readers. December 2020 is here. I didn't think it would ever get here. This year felt like it lasted at least 47 years. And I haven't had to deal with the harsh difficulties of so many others. I participate in Dressember every year because victims of human trafficking need help to move forward. They need rescue, safety and rehabilitation. This trauma isn't something people can move past without help. I appreciate that after-care is prioritized by Dressember and the organizations they partner with. You can learn more at their site. 

I found this long navy blue dress at a clothes swap and fell in love. I love navy blue, and this was a cozy sweater dress.

 There was one problem. It was much tighter than I thought it would be. It was a knit but it didn't have much stretch at all. I thought about making a maxi-skirt but really wanted a dress with those gray side panels. What could I do?

First, I decided the dress needed to be shorter. I put it on my dress form and measured to make sure I would get the skirt even all the way around.

I liked the new length but it was still too tight.

I cut the sides open on each side of the dress. I kept cutting along the seam all the way up the inside of each arm. 

I had all that extra fabric I had cut off from the bottom of the dress. Somewhere in that extra fabric was going to be my solution.

I used that extra fabric to expand the dress a little on each side where I had cut it open. I got a 1/4 off and inch of in the waist but I ignored it.

Adding the blue fabric in the sides gave me the extra room I needed. I was so much more comfortable and cozy. My new dress is a knit so using the same fabric meant that it all worked well together. And I did not need to buy any other fabric.

Thanks for reading along, you can go to my Dressember page to learn more about the work Dressember does to help victims of human trafficking.

Dressember Dresses; The Denim One Again

 Hello Readers. I told you last time there are 40 million people in trafficking situations world wide. According to Dressember 1/4 of those trafficking victims is a child. That is 10 million children in our world. It is just horrifying. It makes me want to be an advocate. 

If wearing dresses and ties can help raise money to assist victims than I am all for it! Today's dress is actually the second part of my last refashion. The original denim dress had enough fabric to make a second refashion.

This dress was a refashion dream because the possibilities were endless.  

I had the entire skirt to work with. I wanted to make a jumper dress that I could layer over shirts and tights. I spread the skirt on the floor and planned out my jumper. I made the hips too curvy and had to correct that later.

I found a couple extra buttons inside the dress and put them to use. I had to add them to the bottom of the button placket to keep my new dress closed at the hemline.

I used some of the extra fabric to make shoulder straps.

My new jumper was simple and easy to wear with anything.

Thanks for reading along. Check out Dressember.org if you can.