Stripes and Denim

Hello Readers. Today's project is actually 2 projects. They go together and are very similar. I made them at the same time so I decided to show them to you at the same time.

*** PART 1 ***

It all began with these skinny jeans. They were soft and broken in. They fit pretty well but they were not quite right. They were faded at the knees. Well, they were supposed to be faded at the knees. Can you see how the faded spots are below my knees? This is a common problem for short girls. My legs are not nearly as long as these jeans think they should be. Even when I cuffed them to the right length, I couldn't move the faded spots up on my real knees.

I decided to make shorts and cut off the faded spots altogether. Skinny jeans are sometimes too tapered and tight around the thighs to make comfortable shorts. I have a solution for that. The solution is this black skirt. This black skirt is too tight on me. It fit when I bought it but now it is too tight. I might as well use it to make something else.

I cut the panels from the skirt. I cut 2 narrow pieces and 2 wide pieces. I used the smaller pieces for the shorts. (The larger pieces are for later.) All the pieces are slightly wider at the bottom than they are at the top. That helped the shorts fit comfortably around my thighs.

I cut the side seams of the jeans open and inserted the black pieces. It made the legs of the shorts wide enough to make comfortable shorts. I hemmed them the length I wanted. It makes a contrasting black stripe down the side.

If you look closely, you can see where my little guy splattered yogurt at me. #momlife 

*** PART 2 ***

I also had a denim skirt exactly like the black one. I bought it when I bought the black skirt. I remember thinking I liked how they fit when I bought them but I never wore them because they were too tight. Did they shrink??? Did I grow??? (Maybe. Probably. Definitely.)

I cut the side seams open on the skirt and added the 2 wider black pieces from the black skirt. The denim skirt needed to be wider to fit around my hips so I added as much black fabric as I needed to make the skirt fit well. 

I liked the new look of the skirt. The black stripes down the sides made the plain denim a little more interesting but the colors are still neutral and subdued. It was easy to wear. I wore it to a local paint night. It was fun but painting is difficult. Very, very difficult. 

This picture is really dark.                             This one is better.

These were fun to put together. I had 3 items that didn't fit well and now I have 2 that fit great.

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

The Pink Ink Dress

Hello Readers. I found this J. Crew dress at a clothes swap. It looked great. It was a pretty pink and in great shape. Or so I thought.  

I didn't notice the spot on the front. It looks like a bleach spot and someone tried to cover it with a pink pen. It didn't work very well. I like J. Crew so I decided to try and save this dress. 

I could have tried to dye it a dark color to cover the ink. I am not sure if it would cover evenly, but it is one idea. 

I chose to use the scraps from the red romper I made last week. I had this skirt piece and the long thin piece I cut off the bottom. It is soft stretchy knit and easy to work with.

I made a tube from the skirt piece. It was small but it is so stretchy it would make a nice fitted belt. It would cinch in the waist but wouldn't feel like a girdle.

And, I hated it. It looks like a box of chocolates on Valentine's Day, Why did I think this would be a good combo?  The pen mark is totally covered, but I don't want to wear this.

I thought the color scheme was wrong so I tried a different scarf. It was still really bad. It was time to ditch the scarves.

I went with a wide brown belt. It covered the mark and was a more neutral color. I wasn't thrilled with this at all but it is wearable. I think it might go back on the rack for later.

They can't all be winners. Thanks for reading, now go make something fun for yourself.

The Red Romper

Hello Readers. I really like red. I think it is bright and cheerful. (Two things I want to be.) I saw this red knit "dress" at a clothes swap and thought it was a basic mini-dress. Or maybe a tunic. I took it home (Washed it.) and it hung on my clothes rack for a few months. I finally got to it and planned on finding a way to make sure it was long enough to wear as a dress. But I got a surprise.

It was soft but felt really bulky and heavy at the bottom. I realized there was more to this dress than I first thought. It was a skort-dress. I have never seen a skort dress before. I have seen skorts. (You know, a skirt with attached shorts under it.) 

I didn't like the double layer around my hips. It added size and shapelessness. Something had to be done.

All this fabric is like butt insulation. Not good for summer.

I do not own a romper so I decided to make one. I was just flying by the seat of my pants (Er, romper.) as I played with the fabric on this refashion. I decided to remove the skirt. There was a seam around the middle where the skirt was attached so I just used it as a guide to cut the skirt off. It is a knit so there was no fraying. That was easy but it was very loose and shapeless and needed more help.

I attached elastic inside at the waist. I used the seam as my guide and machine sewed the elastic to the romper. I wanted some shape and elastic seemed like the way to go.

This is the skirt piece. I decided to cut off the finished bottom edge to use as a belt.

Here is a photo of that cutting process. It wasn't really a process. It was just snip-snip-snip.

The belt seemed like a nice touch but isn't required since I had put in the elastic around the waist. And really, once I had the belt ready, I could have skipped the elastic.

  But the belt is handy to have. Actually you will see it again in my next post.

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

Simple Summer Shorts

Hello Readers. It is hot and humid here. We are in the middle of a heat wave. It is a great time to make some shorts. So, that's what I did. I messed up pretty badly when I was making them and had to come up with a repair/correction plan. 

I started with these jeans. They were a little baggy. That was actually great because I didn't want tight shorts. I wanted a little bit of a looser fit. I cut them off and planned on making a rolled cuff. But I cut them way to short in the back of one leg. They were REALLY way too short. I would never be able to bend down or move freely without revealing more in the back than I would ever want to. I needed more coverage in back. What could I do to fix it?

I decided to add some trim to add length. I used a wide ribbon to add as much length to that one leg as I could. I couldn't just attach the trim on the hem of the shorts. The shorts were uneven so I had to measure as I pinned the ribbon to make sure it was evenly added to the leg openings.

I just made sure each side was exactly the same by comparing each side as I pinned the ribbon on.

I also added some ribbon to the back pockets to match the legs. 

Here is what was cut off from the jeans. You can see how the cut was really uneven in this photo. The picture on the right shows my cutting mistake. Oops!

The navy blue trim looks nice with the dark denim. It coordinates rather than stand out.

I have tried to make shorts before and I have messed up many times Now when I lay the jeans out to cut I keep the back of the waistband higher than the front. This leaves more fabric to cover your backside. Humans of all sizes (Me included.) are bigger in the back than they are in the front. There has to be more fabric back there.

I also try to make the outer legs higher/shorter than the inner legs. This allows enough fabric to fully cover the crotch area. It will all look straight and even when actually worn.

Here are the shorts in the sunshine. Yes, I am as pale as I look in this pictures. You don't need to adjust the screen, it's shocking but it's real. I just don't get tan. It's just not going to happen. Every summer requires gallons of sunblock.

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

The Goonies Shirt

Hello Readers. This red Goonies shirt came my way recently.  Do you remember "The Goonies"? I was a kid in the 80's and I saw this movie in the theater. (That was the only place to see movies back then.) I couldn't remember the entire movie but I knew I liked it. The rag-tag group of kids were loud and obnoxious and they save the day in the end. I couldn't recall all the details but they went to find a treasure and had an exciting adventure on the way. Every kid likes movies like that, right?

The shirt was big on me. I guess I could have saved it as a night shirt but I wanted to wear it during the day as a shirt. It would need to be altered. I was feeling some nostalgia for the 80's and I didn't want to hide the shirt away. I wanted to wear it in public.

I used a shirt I liked as a guide and marked the arms and sides. I liked the loose fit of the white shirt and I liked the rounded hem at the bottom. I could copy it with this red shirt. I used my sewing machine and made a smaller shirt with the shape I wanted. I just traced the white shirt and cut it out. I connected the sides and arms and I was done.

I wore this shirt for one of my favorite activities. It was to pick up some Chinese take-out for dinner. My favorite food? Take-out. I have no strength to resist the fried rice. I am weak.

I came home and put in the DVD I had stashed away in the cabinet. It's dinner and a movie without any cooking for me this night. 

The shirt is loose and flowy which is nice in the heat. The neck and shoulders fit well so it doesn't look like a night shirt anymore.

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

And remember, Goonies never say die.

The Watermelon Skirt

Hello Readers. I created a skirt recently that looks like a slice of watermelon. Why did I do this? I wanted to try it and it seemed like such a fun look for the hot weather. 

I had this pink dress in my refashion stash. It was too small on top for me to wear. I also had this green skirt. The skirt is a refashion from last June. I wasn't wearing it very often so I used part of it for the watermelon skirt.

I started by painting black ovals along the bottom of the skirt. I used a sponge to make the ovals. I also added a 2 inch band of green fabric to the bottom of the pink skirt. (I just cut the bottom of the green skirt off and attached it to the pink skirt.) I attached white rick-rack to the skirt right between the pink and the green to make it look like watermelon rind. 

You can see where I cut the skirt off the dress. I cut right above the elastic so I could use it as the waistband of my new skirt. This saved a lot of time and made this an easy refashion.

Here is my finished skirt. It is really cute and sweet. I thought wearing a black top would help keep it from getting too cute or too sweet. It is a lot of fun to wear.

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

Shorter Flowers

Hello Readers. How are you today? I did a simple dress refashion recently. I found this great floral dress at a clothes swap. It fit perfectly and I liked the little cap sleeves. There was no problem except for the length. It was SO long on me. Going shorter seemed like the way to go.

I made a big cut across the bottom of the dress. I was trying to pick a spot that would look good with the buttons down the front of the dress. I wanted it to look balanced and I wanted to leave a little plain fabric at the bottom of the dress beneath the buttons. 

I decided to make a lettuce leaf hem at the bottom. It is basically a zig-zag at the very edge of the fabric. You pull the fabric gently from both sides and you get a nice little ruffled edge when you're done.

Here is my ruffled edge. It has a nice look. You don't need to fold the fabric under so you don't lose any of the length.

I wore this to church but I also wore it in the backyard. You can see I was photobombed by a cute little guy. I also played in our deluxe backyard pool.(Just kidding, it's pretty low budget.) But this dress is very versatile.

Is my child playing outside in his pj's? Yes, he is.

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