The Fruit Dress

Hello Readers. My project today was a bit overwhelming at first. I was not sure I could turn this dress into something I would really like but I enjoy a challenge. When I saw this colorful print I thought it looked like polka dots, but it's not.

Look at this floor length fruit masterpiece! It even has pockets.

Yea baby, that's a lot of fruit! This has to be the most fruit on a dress I have ever seen. Honestly, I don't know if I have even seen another dress covered in fruit ever.

I started by removing the shoulder pads. I didn't even need to cut them, they were snapped in. I unpicked all the stitches of the sleeves and removed those. I also gave it a big cut at the bottom.

I turned the raw edges of the arm holes under and stitched them down. I made the new arm seam as small as I could and it worked well. I also made a new hem at the bottom of the dress. This dress ended up so much better than I imagined. I had doubts about all that fruit, but the shorter length and removing the sleeves made the fabric less overwhelming. 

It was perfect for a special church dinner with my husband. 

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

The Tinfoil Superhero Shirt

Hello Readers. A tinfoil shirt? It sounds crazy, but trust me. It will all make sense very soon.

 I made a quick superhero shirt for my daughter. The restaurant she works at was having a superhero night and she wanted to wear a Captain America shirt. 

Here is what I had to work with. She had a blue shirt with an plastic/rubbery/vinyl applique/decal on the front. She had cut it down and tried to make a cute summer top. It didn't fit and it sat in a sewing pile for months. She had a plain gray shirt too. You can see what I was thinking right? I would just cut the Captain America shield off the blue shirt and sew it on the gray shirt. 

That was a huge fail. The gray shirt was so fine and stretchy It was impossible to work with. It was all puckered when I sewed them together. I didn't get a picture of the mess, sorry. I unpicked the stitches and removed it.

                                                                       Are those feet??? Oops.

It's time for - Plan B

I used some iron on tape and put pieces of it under the rubbery applique and planned to iron it on the gray shirt. How could I iron a rubbery plastic material without it melting and getting stuck to my iron?

I used some non-stick tin foil. I covered the shield and prayed I wouldn't ruin it. I went over it with the iron and when the iron on tape started to stick, I flipped the shirt over and ironed the back of the shirt and the hem tape melted and held on well. I kept the tin foil on until it all cooled down. The decal came out a bit more shiny, but looked great.

Here is my daughter in her shirt with Superman.

And this is my little guy and I, we stopped by to eat dinner. I am not sure he knew what was going on but he looked cute in his Superman pajamas. I wore a Spider-man shirt I found at a clothes swap recently. I knew it would come in handy for something.

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

The Blue and White China Dress

Hello Readers. When I saw this dress at a clothes swap I took it based on color alone. I love blue and white together. When I got home I realized it was way too big. Since I already had it on the refashion rack, I wanted to do something with it. 

I am serious when I say I love blue and white. The dress reminded me of some dishes. These shelves are in my kitchen. Blue and white is such a classic combination, but we should get back to the dress shouldn't we?

I used the widest parts (not the narrow elastic waist) of a dress I liked as a size guide and marked the fabric with a pencil. I used my sewing machine to make new side seams and narrow the arms a little too. I didn't change the style or shape of the dress at all. I just made the arms and sides of the dress smaller. The hem and the ends of the sleeves have the nice darker blue design, it would be a shame to remove any of it.

I liked the design so much I didn't shorten it at all. And long sleeves and a long skirt are handy and will cover my poison ivy nicely. (Yes, I still have poison ivy after 6+ weeks. It's crazy.)

This dress is basically straight up and down the sides. It doesn't have an elastic waist like the dress I used as a size guide so I added a belt to cinch in the waist. It was chilly the morning I wore this so I also added a sweater to go to church. 

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

And avoid poison ivy if you can!

The Baggy Skirt

Hello Readers. I hope you are doing well. I did a thrift store run recently because a friend posted that there was a 10 for $10 sale. (Thanks Toni!) I couldn't ignore a sale like that. I found this top and skirt. The top fit so my project today is the great skirt that was too big. You can see from the before pictures that is was baggy and unflattering. The drawstring held it up but it needed some help on the fit. 

Usually I just take in the side seams when I want to make a garment smaller. But this skirt had some cute stitching details on both sides as you can see below. I didn't want to lose those cute extras. 

I decided to remove the excess from the back. I tried it on inside out and marked where I needed to make my new seam. I stitched straight down the middle of the back of the skirt. Lots of skirts have a seam down the back, it won't stand out or look strange if this skirt has one too. I pressed the new seam to make it nice and smooth.

I liked this skirt mainly for the color. It is perfect for Autumn. Where I live it is cool in the morning but still hot in the afternoon. This is a great outfit for that kind of weather. You can see the new seam in the photo below on the right. 

I already owned the sweater, so it was $2.00 total for the whole outfit. I think that is pretty great.

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

Happy Fall Y'All

Hello Readers. That title reveals my slight southern accent (Is y'all a southern term?) but it is officially Fall now. It is still hot here but I decided to embrace the season by redecorating the front porch. Without spending any money!

I had this orange jacket/shirt thing from a clothes swap. They color is great for fall. It was too big for me to wear as it was and there was one thing I didn't really like about it. Can you guess what it is? The GIGANTIC knot buttons were just not my style I guess. I am pretty short so maybe they look big on me. They just felt so huge.

If I ignored the front, the back was nice and plain. I could use it to make anything to create something for my front porch. KC the Wonder Dog was there to help me.

I cut out a vaguely pumpkin-ish shape. It isn't perfect, that is OK. I am going to make a pillow and when it is stuffed I think it will look even and balanced. And are pumpkins perfectly even and balanced? 

I also had this brown turtleneck shirt from the same clothes swap. It is a great shirt but I don't like the tight band around my neck. I feel like I am being strangled by them.

I cut the neckband off. I will save the shirt for another refashion another day.

Here is the back of my pillow. I sewed the center seam shut but left a small opening and left the knot button as a closure so I can stuff it. 

This is the front of the pillow. It is nice and plain. Maybe a little too plain. I will work on that too. And the stem needs to be more stem shaped.

I stuffed some plastic bags into the pillow. They are good for outdoor use and free! This pillow won't really be used like on a sofa or bed. So the crinkle of the plastic bags is OK.

I used a brown Sharpee marker to make curved brown lines down the pumpkin. It is subtle but it gave it more of a pumpkin look. You can see here I shaped the brown fabric stem as well.

There was a lot of fabric left from the arms. It's too much fabric to go to waste.

I put the arms together and made a long sash. I wasn't sure what to do with it yet. 

I used the sash on my door with a sign my daughter made for me when the little guy was born. I love it. The sash coordinates with the pumpkin pillow. My summer flowers are still in good shape so I tied some fall ribbon around the pots and left them on the porch.

*** KIDS CRAFT IDEA ***

This little pumpkin is a nice simple craft for kids. It is just a toilet paper roll wrapped in fabric. You stuff the fabric into the center of the roll. Thin fabric is best and orange is nice but not the only color you can use. 

Then you can twist a paper stem and stuff it in the center too. No messy glue needed!

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

Happy Fall Y'all!

The Painted Jeans

Hello Readers. I did a really fun project recently. I saw some painted jeans on Pinterest that I couldn't resist copying. They were distressed and had cherry blossoms painted on the legs. Here is a link if you want to see my inspiration. These are a cheaper version of a designer pair the cost $500, according to what I read. I don't have $500 to spend on jeans so I made my own.

 I grew up near Washington DC and every spring the cherry tree blossoms would come out in the all trees along the tidal basin. The nation capital loses it's mind over this every year because it is so pretty. The trees are watched to predict when the blossoms will be at their fullest, it is part of our daily news and there is a huge National Cherry Blossom Festival.

I started with a pair of jeans that fit but were not my favorite pair. I didn't want to risk my favorite pair if it didn't turn out well. You never know.

I thought that I would like the jeans to be faded. So I soaked them in diluted bleach. It didn't turn out well. I have tried this before, I guess I am a slow learner. They did not fade evenly as I thought they would. I decided to go with it and see how it looked after painting them.

I got some paint from the craft section at Walmart. It was only 50 cents a bottle. It is basic acrylic paint that dries fast and doesn't wash out in the washer. (Wear old clothes or an apron if you try this idea.) The sponge brush came in handy as did a regular narrow child's paint brush. (Not shown.)

I smeared some white paint on the jeans randomly. It seemed to dry instantly. Then I painted black branches on the jeans too. I did it with no plan and no sketching first. I let the black paint dry for a few minutes.

I used the paint brush to add bright pink dabs of paint around the branches. It looked very bright but that's OK. I wasn't done. I didn't let it dry I went right into the next step.

I mixed some white and pink together for a lighter shade of pink and did a bunch of small dabs on the dark pink spots. Some dark pink showed through and some didn't. I had some nice variation in the colors. I didn't wait after this step either, I went right into the next step.

I added a little plain white paint on top of the light pink. Some of the paint started mixing together as I painted and that made it look even better. I was just doing tiny little dabs of paint with a small brush. Cherry blossoms are small and clustered together. I also thought I had covered the branches too much so I added a little bit more black on top of the black branches to make them show more.

I let it all dry over night and the next day I repeated these steps on the back of the jeans. I didn't do as much, just enough to coordinate with the front.

Here is the finished project, it was one of the most fun to do. I love painting and this was easy because it isn't meant to be perfect. They were really stiff at first but they got softer after one wash. It is a bit hard to see (Look closely.) the distressed knees that I added in the picture on the right because I was trying to show the cherry blossoms. 

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