Sunday, March 10, 2013

Lipstick on a pig


I've been doing some more sewing lately.  I am working to pull together some spring/summer outfits so I can clean out the closets and transfer seasons.  Part of that clean-out has me holding a ton of boys jeans with holes in the knees.  When they are this bad, I don't bother to take them to the thriftstore.  I use them to "play around".

I am not really sure if there is a difference in boys and girls jeans before the puberty years, I mean cut-wise.  So I decided to  just go for it and make them girls jeans now.  So far I've done 4 pair, two not quite finished so I'll show them tomorrow.   I did the other two as capris!  I have about 10 pair in all  so I may alter a few with a boy flair but that will take much more thought and digging through fabric.

Pair Number 1


This pair had a huge hole and a tiny hole, so I didn't have to patch both sides.

In order to sew  these on a sewing machine, you have to use a stitchpicker on the seams so that you will have a flat surface to sew on.  Even a free arm machine won't fit a size 5 pants leg.  You just un-seam them up to the thigh, add the embellishments and sew them back up. 


Please ignore the toilet and duct-taped carpet in the background :)


This should continue to ravel right up to the edge of the stitches.





I just cut the bottom hem off, which is really thick and pointless with the ruffle on, and left it raw.  As they are washed, it will ravel and be a soft edge on the leg.



Pair Number 2





I left the edges of the print raw so they will ravel up to the stitchline.  





I haven't decided what I am going to do with these yet.  I thought about consignment.  Do you think they would sell?

I've shown pair number 3 before in a previous post, but they are too small for the daughter now so I'll be getting rid of them too.

Pair Number 3

This material came from a vest....see previous post.




No choice on leaving the edge raw when you only have a tiny piece of fabric left to work with.





More to come....

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Bubble dress from skirt


Here we have your typical skirt.  A blurry picture so let me describe.....cotton, some simple embroidery detail, a sequin here and there.  



A white cotton lining.


First things first, lets use what is there.  A nice zipper in the back so lets make use of that and leave the back flat.  A piece of trim in the front that will make a nice casing for a piece of elastic to gather the front up, so lets use that.  You can see the untrimmed end of elastic in the picture.


Once I got the elastic in, I trimmed those ends off.


If I shorten the underskirt....



and attach it to the outerskirt on the rightside of the fabric....





leaving a little hole so I can pull it rightside out....
(no need to serge since it will never be seen)







like this......





I am left with a bubble skirt!


Add ribbon straps as a little embellishment and you have a bubble dress.











Nice huh?


Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Ottoman from the bottom, man!

 We found this propped by the dumpster... pitiful huh?


It has a nice size hole gouged out in the center so we had to fix that.   Nothing a little cotton wadding can't fill.  The legs were loose so we put toothpicks in the screw holes and tightened down the screws again.  The toothpicks give the screws something to grab if the hole is wallowed out.  


GOOD  OLD DUCT TAPE!



I used the cotton batting left over from the "Bangin' Bumper Blouse" (previous post) to cover this multitude of sins.


 And then a thrift store curtain to cover it all.  I just sewed a box basically and stapled it to the wood underneath.



 And there it is in its new home....



I'd never justify buying this in the store, but the fact that I was able to make for almost nothing is what makes it so fun for me.