kcwc day 3: refashioned sweater hoodie

Last night's project was a hoodie for Oscar.  This is about the closest we get to outerwear in Santa Barbara, and he probably won't need it for another few months.

This hoodie is kind of a frankenstein piece - I rescued two of my husband's old sweaters from the goodwill pile that were still in great shape and chopped them up into a variety of pattern pieces.  Rae's Flashback Skinny Tee for the bodice, hood and sleeves from Heidi & Finn's Urban Unisex Hoodie, and a kangaroo pocket from  Go To Patterns' Signature Dress.   I slapped them all together and hoped for the best, and it mostly worked!  The fit is not perfect, but I intentionally cut it big (5T) so it would last a while.

Oscar loves the cozy sweater fabric (it is SO soft), and the kangaroo pocket.  I guess he's never had one before ... he thought it was really fun that his hands could meet in the middle.

Oscar turns into a complete weirdo for the camera.  I have a precious few seconds to snap a picture of him looking normal, and then he morphs into this:

I have about 20 pictures of him either flashing toddler gang signs or striking a super hero pose.  Then he wants to see them all in the viewing window.  I am hard-pressed to get him to just stand there looking sweet.

Oh, well.  At least he likes the sweater.

quick craft: t-shirt sleeve baby hat

Here's another quick baby craft for you - turn the sleeve of an old t-shirt into a baby hat!

When using a long sleeve, you will need to hem the widest side (this will be the open part of the hat). Use a zig-zag stitch so it will still stretch easily. Choose how you want the top to look. There are many possibilities here - you can just round it out, do a long point, or here, I sewed "bunny ears" that can be tied in a knot, like so:

Short sleeve tees work really well too, especially since the end of the sleeve is wide and can be used as the hat bottom, no hemming required. Just finish off the top and you're done!

10 minute cardigan fix

Have you ever had a clothing item that you really loved in theory, but is kind of hideous when you actually put it on?

Take this cardigan, for instance. Love the color, love the ruffle, but the fit is SO bad. It was the first post-pregnancy shirt I bought for myself. I liked it at first, but as the baby pounds came off I wore it less an less. A shapeless pink sack is not flattering, even with a ruffle.

This morning I decided to take action. I cut off the long sleeves, cut off the sleeve cuffs, and re-attached them to the new short sleeves. Then I took in the sides to give it a better fit.

Much better!
This literally took 10 minutes, and now I have a "new" favorite cardigan. Santa Barbara is making me rethink my winter wardrobe. My box of sweaters is about to be attacked.

shirt refashion in two ways - part 2

After my original attempt at refashioning this shirt failed (I sized the first one wrong and it was way too small - the post below is my second attempt), I had to come up with a plan B. And the ruffle pillow was born:

I've seen ruffly pillows around online (like here at kelly + olive), so this isn't a new idea, but making a pillow from a shirt is easy and fast, because all the hard parts are already done.

First I removed all the ruffles. Then I cut a 12 1/2 inch square of fabric from the back of the shirt, and a 12 1/2 inch square from the front of the shirt, centering it on the buttons.

I re-attached the ruffles to the fabric cut from the back of the shirt (the solid piece), which now becomes the front of the pillow.

With right sides together, sew around all sides. You now have a cute, ruffly pillow with a button-up back closure. Easy!

Here's what the back looks like:

Have I mentioned how my husband hates this ruffle-craze? Really hates it. And I am wearing a lot of ruffles these days. Oops.

I have a good sized piece of the original shirt left over from this project and I can't bear to throw it away. What do you think I should do with it?

I'm thinking it could be the top of a little girl or baby dress. We'll see!

shirt refashion in two ways - part I

I am really into refashioning lately, so my apologies if this is getting boring. Sometimes macy's just has too good of a sale, and I end up buying things that don't quite work for me. I found a few sleeveless tunic shirts on mega-clearance recently. No before-photo (I am a doofus and forgot), but it's not hard to imagine - it looks just like the shirt pictured above, but sleeveless and about 6 inches longer.

I am a sleeves-wearing kind of gal, so I just chopped off the bottom 6 inches of the shirt and used that extra fabric to make sleeves. I cut the sleeves out of each side of the shirt, since the back wasn't wide enough to cut two. There was a little vent on each side of the shirt, but that worked for me. I just added a button closure to the sleeves (see below) using buttons from the discarded front of the shirt . The sleeves were made exactly like my t-shirt tutorial. The only difference is this shirt was lined, so there are two layers.

Hem the bottom of the shirt and bada bing, you're done.

Stay tuned for the next refashion ... same shirt, completely different use.

recycled jeans skirt

I've had a lot of really fun things going on lately - I've won great prizes from other blogs, have had my old roommate come to the city for a visit, I have even attended an accordion festival. I have also made some useful crafts. Since this is a craft blog, I'll start with my jean skirt, and hopefully get to the other stuff later this week. Summer seems to be a hard blogging time for me - not enough time to do all the great things New York has to offer, and certainly not enough time to write about it.

Anyway, on to the skirt. As I said before, my old college roomie and long time best bud came to town and frequently wore an adorable jean skirt, which made me want one of my own. I wish I would have had the patience and foresight to turn it into a tutorial, but I got so excited that I dove right into the project, unfortunately without pulling out my camera. Basically, here's what I did:

1) I started with a pair of great fitting jeans that I no longer wear (my flared leg days have passed).

2) Using a seam ripper, take out the inseam stitching of both legs up to about an inch below the zipper in front and about the same amount up the backside. I didn't cut the fabric, because I wanted to keep the nice front seams intact.

3) Cut the legs off to the desired skirt length - keep the leg bottoms to use later.

4) Overlap the fabric on the front side to the desired skirt width, making sure the fabric lays down flat and pin. There will be a large triangle opening at the bottom where the fabric doesn't meet.

5) Fit a piece of the leftover leg fabric in the opening and pin. I tried it on at this point to see how the denim hung, and readjusted until the fit was right.

6) Sew the panel in and cut off the excess fabric



7) Repeat steps 4-6 on the back. Since you do not have the nice seams on the backside, I ironed the edges flat and sewed three times (spaced evenly) along the panel for a bit of decoration. Then I frayed the edge of the denim.

8) Ta-da! Brand new skirt. The next day at church, you and your husband/friend/significant other pull at the frayed bottom edge of the skirt, making it look even more awesome. :)


Whew - longest post ever. For a more coherent tutorial (with step-by-step photos) go to not martha.

shirt to dress refashion

I love to find a good bargain. The only person I know who loves to bargain shop more than me is my beloved friend Megan. She once wore a 76 cent clearance skirt (76 cents!!!) to a church activity, and forgot to take the price tag off. It was embarrassing and awesome. But that is a story for another day.

Last week I was in Macy's, scouring the clearance rack, when I found this shirt (p.s. sorry about the dark photos ... I craft at night!):

The top part was cute, but the never-ending bottom was problematic. It came down to like mid-thigh. Stacy and Clinton would not approve. However, it was exactly what I was looking for, because I was feeling inspired by the incredibly talented Alexis of My Mama Made It. Have you seen her blog? I love it. Especially the very last dress in this post.

With my partially cute bargain shirt on hand, I was ready for a little experiment, which resulted in this:


Here's how to do it. First, I got out my trusty seam ripper and carefully removed the bottom half of the shirt from the empire waistband.

Then I took the side seams out of the bottom of the shirt, and unpicked the pleats from the front and the darts from the back. I didn't iron them out though, because I wanted to recreate them on my skirt.

I laid the front piece of the shirt on top of my skirt material and cut it to the same size, only I extended the length . I cut mine to 27 inches long. You want the top of the skirt to be the same width so it will fit back in the shirt waistband. Do the same thing with the back piece of fabric.

Next I recreated the pleats in front and the darts in back. I didn't really measure ... just folded and pinned my skirt fabric in the same places the shirt had pleats/darts.


I forgot to take pictures at this point, but here's where the sewing started.

1. Sew across the top of the front skirt piece to hold the pleats in place, and then sew up the darts in the back.
2. Attach the front and back skirt pieces to the waistband (just slide them right back inside the waistband and top-stitch it closed).
3. Sew the side seams along both sides of the skirt
4. Try on the dress and pin the hem to your liking. Using the blindest blind stitch you can muster, hem the skirt. (I have little patience for hand-sewing.)

And that's it! It was a pretty easy project, and took me about 3 hours total.

I was nervous about the bright orange fabric, but now I love it. Gives the dress a little zing, don't you think?

disneyland outfits for the girls

We did two days of Disneyland, so of course, Ruby needed two days of outfits.  I already showed you the Belle Dress.  I was sad because we never ran into Belle for a photo.  Better luck next time!

For the second day, we dropped the Disney princess stuff and went for full-on FUN.  Because looking like a polka dot explosion is completely acceptable at Disneyland (actually, if you are a baby it is acceptable anytime).

T-shirt dresses are easy-peasy.  All you do is add a few inches of fabric to the bottom of a t-shirt.  I also like a little gather, so I cut the fabric 1.5 times the width of the t-shirt.  The length of the skirt can vary - I think Ruby's skirt was about 4 inches long after hemming, and her cousin's was about 6 inches long.  The flower was made using a Make It and Love It tutorial.

Of course, the girls needed coordinating leggings (pattern by Lil' Blue Boo).

Ruby's cousin is a big Minnie/Mickey fan.  Minnie's face was made with the Silhouette heat transfer.  Before cutting, I edited out her bow so I could add my own fabric bow to match the skirt.

Ruby was a real trooper all through Disneyland.  Her favorite stop was definitely the little petting zoo in Frontierland.  She would grab the goats' ears and laugh hysterically.  I love big baby laughs.  Oh, and did I mention that Oscar rode the Matterhorn?  He was one tough cookie.

Hurray for Disneyland!  I really do love it.  I'm sure you are sick of hearing about it, so back to non-disney crafts next week.  :)

Refashioned Jeans to Maternity Skirt Tutorial

March is Go Green Month over at Sew Much Ado, and today I'm participating by showing you how to take an old pair of jeans and t-shirt and refashioning them into a cute maternity pencil skirt.

For this project, you'll need a pair of wide leg jeans, a jersey knit t-shirt, and the usual sewing equipment.  I used a well loved pair of trouser jeans that I'd walked the hem off of, and a t-shirt that fit well, except it had shrunk in the wash and was too short.

I'm not going to provide many exact measurements in this tutorial, because you should be using clothes that already fit you reasonably well.  Please use the guidelines below, but account for your own body type!

Using a seam ripper, take out the inner leg seam all the way from the hem to the zipper on both pant legs.  Carefully remove the zipper, and sew the opening shut (I just top stitched mine).

Also remove the waistband.  These jeans were a low rise, so I didn't need to cut any lower than removing the waistband.  If your jeans have a higher rise, you'll want to cut them lower in the front to accommodate your growing pregnant belly.  Most importantly, you need to be able to pull the closed pants up over your hips, since this will be a pull-on skirt (no zipper or button openings).

Open the pants up so the pant legs are laying on top of one another, with the right sides of the fabric facing together.  Using a ruler (or just eye-balling it), mark and pin a straight line from where you stopped removing the leg inseam, all the way down the pant leg. 

(Please ignore my taped-together ruler.  Oscar sure is cute, but he breaks things)

Sew together and repeat on the other side.  Turn the skirt right side out.  Assuming everything lays nicely, turn inside out again and cut off the excess fabric.

Turn the skirt right side out again - looks like a skirt now, huh?  Press your new seams.

Try your skirt on and decide how long you want it to be.  Mark the length and cut.

I opened up the seam on the back of the skirt a few inches to allow for a slit.  This is kind of necessary, since it will be a narrower skirt.  Don't forget to back stitch again at the top of the slit.

If you have a serger, now would be a good time to use it.  If you don't have a serger, you can either leave your seams as is, or zig zag over them.

Sew the slit.  I folded over the edges on either side of the slit (there was an existing crease here anyway from the original seam) and pin.  Top stitch approximately 1/4 inch from the edge.

Top stitch your seams on the front and back of the skirt.

Hem your skirt!  I sewed a nice, thick hem.

If you don't like the look of freshly hemmed denim, you could distress it a little bit with some sand paper.

Time to start cutting up your t-shirt to make the stretchy waistband/belly panel.   A jersey shirt with a lot of stretch works well for this project.

Using a ruler and rotary cutter, cut straight down both sides, and across the top (removing the sleeves and collar).

After cutting, I had two pieces that measured 15x19 inches each.  Pin your fabric, right sides facing together.

Using a zig zag stitch, sew both side seams.  Double stitch for durability.

Other tips for sewing on knit fabric:

• Use a ball point needle!  This makes all the difference.
• Loosen your machine's tension.
• I like to use a walking foot - it has feed dogs on the foot, so the fabric is gripped from the top and bottom and feeds through the machine evenly.  No slipping.  :)

You should now have a tube of fabric.  Turn the tube right side out.

At this point I top-stitched over both seams using a straight stitch.  I'm not sure this is absolutely necessary, but it strengthened the seam and I liked how it looked.

Fold the tube of knit fabric in on itself so it is two layers thick.  The side seams should line up on the inside.

Place your denim skirt inside the knit tube (sorry for the super blurry photo!), lining up the waist of the skirt with the cut edges of the tube.  You will have three layers of fabric here.

Pin in place on the sides, the front middle and back middle (4 pins total).  The knit tube will be smaller than the waist of the skirt, but you will stretch it as you sew.

Using a zig zag stitch, sew around the entire waistband, stretching the knit tube to fit as you go.  Double (or even triple) stitch for extra strength.

Turn the skirt right side out, and you're done!

You can wear the skirt either with the full belly panel as shown below, or fold it over if you prefer a lower waistband.  My pregnancies give me a gnarly outie belly button, so I need all the smoothing effects of stretchy fabric I can get.

This skirt is SO comfortable!  I have worn it two days in a row.  :)