Strappy Swing Dress

I am so excited that it is finally warm enough to start wearing sun dresses! To start out the season I decided to create a new wardrobe staple in a flowy swing dress. I found this plus size women's blouse at the goodwill outlet! It was almost long enough to begin with...almost I assure you I am wearing shorts in this photo.

I loved the print and the lightweight fabric, and I knew with several revisions it would be perfect! In the end this project actually ended up being more extensive than I thought, but well worth it!  Not only is it super comfortable,but I may make a few more because I love the style!

If you would like a more in-depth view of this refashion and what will be coming soon take a gander at my blog! Till next time happy refashioning!

Leather Fringe Purse

Recently I have been doing a lot of sewing for friends and this is no exception. Several weeks back a friend and I were shopping at a department store and she remarked how much she liked a suede fringe purse. It was the prefect size and had the rock and roll feel that she wanted, but we were both in sticker shock when we looked at the price. I had been planning on doing a fringe bag for myself, but haven't quite decided what I wanted so I jumped at the chance of making one for someone else in the meantime.  

This project was exceptionally fulfilling because I had everything on hand besides the hardware which was purchased at an amazing discount because my significant other works at a hardware store.

 I had the perfect piece of leather to work with from the back of a coat I have used on several smaller projects, and the lining was from a pair of pants that I turned into shorts last summer. 

She is absolutely over the moon with her new purse and I am quite pleased with how it turned out. There are a few aspects that I will change if I ever remake this project, but for being my most in-depth leather project so far I think it turned out well.  For a more in depth look at my process take a look at my blog! Until next time happy refashioning and stay creative!

Staple Leather Jacket

I have been wanting a staple leather jacket for a long time now. I check every time I go to a thrift store, but most of what I find are neon 80's nightmares. Honestly I haven't checked out retail stores for one mostly because I know it would be far out of my wallets reach. This winter I found this jacket in the goodwill outlet store and thought that it could be a good start to my future staple garment. Admittedly it came with a few issues the biggest of which being it was to small around my hips.

It was a rather simple standard leather jacket. Nothing overly decorative or special. A perfect blank slate to start out with! For this refashion I added a triangular piece to the hip area to widen the jacket and added decorative stitching to the shoulders and cuffs.

If you want to check out more of my process of refashioning this jacket and the inspiration behind it take a look at my blog. Till next time happy refashioning!

Mom Jeans

Hey Everyone! Today I have a quick refashion for you! I found these boot leg mom jeans at a thrift store and decided to try the mom jeans trend that seems to be everywhere recently. I have been quite hesitant because I remember my mom wearing these from when they were in trend last time and I absolutely hated them. I knew that I wanted to narrow the leg and I had to make a new hem on the bottom. It was my mistake for not trying them on in the store, but when I got home I realized that the previous owner had hemmed them and they were slightly short on me. For this refashion I simply seam ripped out the previous hem on the bottom, made a straight stitch from the thigh to the ankle, and remade a bottom hem. If you would like to see more photos or about the process I have just created a blog about my refashions. It's still rather new and has limited content but feel free to take a look! I hope everyone is having a fantastic Valentine's Day and happy refashioning!

The Suede Skirt

Leather items are one of my favorite things to thrift because buying anything leather is rather expensive. Even at the local craft store they sell 6" by 6" scraps for $5. For this refashion I am using a pair of worse for wear suede pants and a way to tight leather skirt. It seems like suede skirt are rather popular recently and I drew inspirations from sources like this.

For as much sewing as I have done I have made very few circle skirts which is the look I wanted. Issue was I knew I didn't have enough material to work with to make a half circle, but I needed more than a quarter circle to accommodate my measurements. So after some calculations and guesstimates I came up with a pattern then divided the pattern into the individual segments.

Figuring out how to exactly segment out the skirt to work with the suede from the pants was somewhat tricky. There was a decent amount of suede to work with but I didn't want any visible glue lines or previous sewing holes. As you can imagine that eliminates quite a bit of fabric.

All coming together! 

Done! All in all I am happy with how it turned out. The zipper is a bit puckery, but I am alright with that. I also am not positive how I want to have it fastened. I have several broaches that I think would look particularly interesting. For instance in the photos I have used an eagle pin that I have recently found in a thrift store and a simple belt.

Men's Shirt to Tunic Dress

Flannel tunic dresses seemed to be everywhere this fall, and well I guess with the lack of snow and high temps mother nature has forgotten to wake up old man winter. Don't get me wrong I am not complaining. For this refashion I found a XXL men's flannel for $1. To be honest I am notorious for buying menswear to refashion then deciding I think it the way it is, and I might have kept this as it was besides the sleeves were a mile too long for me. Even when they were rolled there was so much fabric it was hard to wear comfortably under a jacket.

I was somewhat weary because I have never reattached sleeves before. Most of the time I am making them bigger, smaller, or taking them off all together. I started by removing the sleeves then clipping the fabric where I would need to sew up the arm hole. I also shortened the shoulders for a better fit. The most difficult part was figuring out how to reattach the sleeves correctly. I thought I was going to need to take some of the width off of the sleeves as well, but because I shortened them a good six inches their width was no longer an issue. 

I am pretty happy with how it turned out! Perhaps I could have made the sleeves a tad longer, but that's me being overly picky they are the perfect length to my outstretched arm (and surprisingly even).

Thanks for reading!

The Curly Hat Mend and Refasion

Once upon a time I found an vintage hat at the Goodwill Outlet. Months later while moving I found it under a sofa with the decorative fur missing and a hole in its place. There was only one likely suspect. He is ridiculously cute, has a weakness for furry objects, and hiding things under furniture. 

The damage was done, but instead of just throwing it out I put it in a box with the rest of my sewing stuff to figure something out later. Fast forward to today while digging around for a pack of needles which I have hopelessly lost I pulled the hat out of my "to mend" drawer. 

It is a really great vintage hat and with the flurries starting to fly I decided it was time it found its way out of the drawer. I do apologize I don't have a photo of it from before the hole was made. Judging from the size of the hole I decided a nice bow would work great. I had some black bias tape leftover from a coat to vest refashion earlier this month.

Its slightly stiff structure ended up working perfectly for the makings of my bow. I had to make it rather elaborate to cover the entirety of the hole. Once I found a shape that worked I created the bow then started to tack it down to the hat. I tacked down only the backs of the bows and the top of the center so the bow still had a bit of movement to it. Finally the hole is covered! I do quite enjoy the hat with just the plain black bow, but I left the bottom of the bow's center untacked so I could add something special if I wanted to!

Clip on earrings are one of my favorite vintage finds. So many great ones can be found in thrift stores and they can be so versatile. I add them to add interest to a boring ponytail or in this instance to clip it to a hat!

Next step I guess is to figure out how to wear it, and to keep it out of the paws of this little guy! Sorry for the horrid photo he wouldn't sit still! 

Thanks for reading!!

*Edited to add better photos, before and after picture, and some content changes.