The Everyday Tunic - Refashion

When my world is shaking, heaven stands

When my heart is breaking

I never leave your hands

Your Hands - J. J. Heller

Before                       -                       After

I picked this size 16 Arrow shirt up at a thrift store last Thursday for $1.  It was the first time I had shopped with my friend Brittany.  Needless to say she didn't understand why I was picking up large men's clothing, sheets, and XXXL sweaters. :-) All in good time.

I cut off the sleeves, 

took in the sides,  

hemmed the arm holes and shirred the back.

Even when you start with a big shirt, it is hard to flatter and girl's body with it.  The shirring takes the guess work out of the side seams.

To remove the last bit of "meh" I covered the front pocket in lace.  Presto feminine-o.  Ish.

And it looks splendid with a belt.  I can see this with everything, everyday.  Dress it up with a black pencil skirt and black belt for the office, White pants and fun necklace for dinner, red pants for your favorite hipster concert, maxi skirt and belt for Sunday and shorts for a day around the house!

Voila!  The everyday tunic.

Tie-front Blouse Refashion

Before // After

I grabbed this lovely old blouse with shoulder pads, embroidered collar and cuffs from my Grandma's going-to-goodwill bag.  The color was perfect and the hand was beautiful.  Grandma told me how beautifully it draped and washed up.  So I stashed it away.

Inspiration hit a week or so ago and I took the shoulder pads out, un picked the collar and cut off the sleeves.  Presto tank-o!  

I took in the sides, bound the arm-holes and modified the neckline so that I could add ties.

I was able to cut the both sleeves in half lengthwise and have enough fabric for the ties.  Yippee!

I attached it in the back like a collar.  All in all it only took approx. 2 hours!  And now I have a neat blouse and some more experience with ties. :)  I absolutely love them.  I find myself wanting to add ties, cut-outs, or buttons to everything.

 And I'm back to studying!  :-)

Tee with a Twist

Post 500 folks!  Check out the poll to the right and vote on what you like most about the blog.  I'm going to be starting a professional photography blog in the near future, so I'd like to know what you want to see more of here. :-)

I've been becoming increasingly interested in all things nautical.  Stripes, red, navy, blue, white, anchors, knots, rope, boats, hats you name it!  So when Mum gave me a way-to-large-but-super-comfy navy tee I saved it.  

Exhibit A: with the side already pinned. (and a bunch of recent garage sale finds strewn all over the room)

Cutting based on a well fitting shirt that has cute little raglan cap sleeves.  Leaving room for seam allowance!

After it was all sewn up, I found some macramé cord (it looks just like rope!) and hand-stitched is in a swirly pattern around the neckline and sleeves.  Easy peezy boss!

Hawaiian Shirtdress Refashion

Today I have a quickie sewing project I did a couple weeks ago.  Knee deep in studying I decided to finally clean my "studio" room and all the open spaces triggered my creativity. So textbooks flew off the agenda and out came the tape measure, scissors, and sewing machine!

Mom bought this top for my Dad at a thrift store because she like the print and it was high quality.  I knew Daddy wouldn't wear it, so we agreed that I would make something else out of it.

I preserved the original collar, hem, pocket and button-holes. It went super quickly.

Instead of sleeves I pulled out some lace trim and added it to the cap sleeve hem with a zig zag stitch.

That's my twirly girl!

I unpicked the pocket and sewed it right back on 5 inches lower.

Add some piping and gather up the skirt and that's the end!

A new summer dress for Emily.  The best part?  I did it while my Mom was gone, and when she got back she saw it hanging in the bathroom and asked my Grandma how much she owed her for it!  She thought my Grandma had picked it up for Emm at Khols!

P.S.  Emily got saved 2 weeks ago!  We're ecstatic over here.  Praise Jesus!

El vestido aqua - Refashion

Here it is at last!  I've been waiting for it to get warm enough to wear this outfit so I could take pictures of it outside and blog it.  There was 2 feet of snow on the ground when I made this a month or so ago.  Finally this past Sunday, Resurrection Sunday, it warmed up to almost 50 degrees.

I've wanted to experiment with making dresses that look like tops+skirts because you get the look with the effortlessness of a dress.  So simple.  

I love long flowing ties!  Feminine and floaty.

I had just taken a shower and it was 9pm when I started the project.  Please pardon the horrendous before images.

Supplies: Large cotton knit shirt with gorgeous neckline applique,  Fabric from a bedskirt a while ago...I think.  It is a rather heavy weave. I also used some white sheet, interfacing, a zipper from the stash and thread, of course.

This shirt was just too pretty to get rid of and to large to wear.  Make it the top of a dress! 

The skirt is based off of Simplicity 4070.  I used the pleated part.

The waistband I freelanced.  It is just long rectangles.  

I wanted to get the young, free, summery feel of a long white sash and bow but I wanted to make it part of the dress.

I hand-picked the lapped side zipper in such a way that the ties are sewn in at the seams and look like  a continuation of the front waistband.

Hand stitched hem.

I'm really happy with the way it turned out.  Next time I would cut more off of the bottom of the shirt before I gather it and connect it to the waistband so that it sits more at my natural waist.

The colors and stripes remind me of some bright spanish festival or fiesta down in Mexico.

Looking forward to spring and getting my fingers and toes in the garden.  I'm planting dozens of poppies this year.  

Thanks Nathanael for taking the pictures for me even though it was breezy and rather cold out. :-)