Paint-dyed house shoes

I turned this grungy old pair of sneakers into some two-tone "house shoes" just in the nick of time—because everyone in my state—and most of the world, it seems—is being urged to stay at home as much as possible.

The hardest part of this project was, as always, deciding what to do with it.

Once I settled on watercolor painting, it only took me two days to finish: one to paint the shoes, and another to paint the laces.

Seems simple enough right? But of course there's a long drawn-out story to go with them and a detailed DIY on my blog!

Hope everyone's staying safe and healthy and home!

--The Unfashionista

Dip Bleach Dress

I hope everyone is staying home and staying safe in these uncertain times.
Lucky for me I have been feeling good and keeping busy! I have taken this time to get projects that I have once started and get them finished! This has applied to sewing projects as well as home decor projects.

I had this little gem hiding on my to refashion rack. I do believe these crocheted maxi dresses have seen their day. Time to revamp this frock!

I thought this long black dress was just a bit too dark so I decided to experiment with some bleach. I dumped 1/2 a bottle of bleach in a bucket and then added water. I placed the bottom 1/2 of the dress into the bleach mixture.
I almost ran out of patience for this. I went and checked on the dress in 40 minutes and it was still as black as when I started. I let it sit again for another 30 minutes and began to see the bleach do its job!
I plopped this dress in the washer machine on a normal setting, and warm water.

I couldn't just leave the dress 1/2 bleached. It needed more detail! I had this black lace piece and I finally found a good place to use it! I sewed the lace in the back neckline.
Once that was stitched in place I trimmed off the excess. Then inspiration hit me! I could use the excess pieces and sew them into the straps. This would really bring together the lace on the back.


Doesn't that look nice already? I stitched that in place!

My husband had bought me tickets to see a symphony play Tachovisky's symphony #5, but since the COVID-19 outbreak the theater had cancelled the performance, which left me terribly sad. I had got a notice that The Royal Opera House would be streaming performances on youtube. Today they started at 3:00 with Peter and the Wolf ballet!
My husband and I decided to get dressed up and watch the performance from the comfort of our couch! It was super fun!




Even Ian was happy he could watch the performance and not have to stay home alone :)


The back!


Happy Refashioning!!!
Check out my stash of refashions on my blog!

Men's shirt into dress diy

 

  Men's shirts are favourite material to refeshion , today I will show you how to sew lovely and easy dress from XXL shirt .

 As my ''before before'' I used plain white man's shirt in XXL size . 

 

during work 

 

  Ready dress on me !

 

 

👇

Whole easy tutorial here

or only in english here ✋😊

 

 

The Candy Striper Dress

Hello Refashion Co-op. I found this dress at a clothes swap and the tiny stripes made me think of an old fashioned candy striper. I wanted to make it look a fresher for spring. How did I do that?

I decided to change the color a little with some dye. 

I also shortened the sleeves a bit. The new color looked much better. 

Thanks for reading along, for more pictures and details go to I Can Work With That.

Patch it up, Part 2

Since I first blogged about it a few years ago, I've been all about decorating my old, boring stuff with fun, festive patches and appliqués! It's a great way to refresh your wardrobe while still reducing your consumption.

Sometimes I get super-creative and make my own appliqués from scratch (see my llama shirt post for an example), but mostly I just use embroidery patches that I order cheaply online and embellishments I've harvested from other garments. Call me lazy, but I haven't been doing much in the way of really ambitious refashions lately, so I figured I'd share a few of my more recent low-effort projects—who knows, maybe if you've been feeling lazy like me, an easy appliqué would be just the thing!

The puppy

My dog's "great aunt" gifted him a homemade dog bed with a puppy face on it when he was just a young 'un. Of course, being a young 'un, he ate most of the dog bed. I salvaged the cute puppy face before it was demolished.

Its eyes weren't filled in, so I colored them with black crayon and ironed them to set the color (Warning! I don't know how this will hold up in the wash). Then I lightly glued the face to a plain sweatshirt to hold it in place while I hand-stitched it on. 

 

 

All done! A fun shirt I can wear to the dog-themed events I love to bring my "son" to! You can tell he's thrilled about the idea.

The Peacock

I used basically the same process on a sequined peacock patch that I bought online, attaching it to a well-loved black dress. This time I omitted the stitching and just glued the peacock on (with water-soluble fabric glue). 

 

 

 

When I was done "peacocking around" in the dress (after just one wear—turns out the appliqué was too heavy and was deforming the neckline), I washed out the glue (it took a long soak and a few washes to get it all out of the dress), and now I can use the peacock again in perhaps another project.

 

That's my favorite thing about appliquéing: the pieces that you use can be easily separated and used again.

The Suitcase

For example, a few years ago, I gussied up some old combat boots with embroidery patches.

They lasted about a year, but eventually the faux leather deteriorated to the point where even the patches couldn't hide it...so I washed off the glue and reused the patches on an old suitcase. Now my nondescript black luggage is easily recognizable at the baggage return!

A trio of skirts

I inherited some skirts from my Grandma - she liked a classic skirt as much as I do but I've been, until now, reluctant to mess with them.  But I like my skirts shorter, so I took a deep breath and took to them with the scissors so I'd wear them.

Obviously, a hem shortening is not the most exciting refashion, so I'm bundling them.  The lilac linen blend and black wool blend skirts were straight forward - just cut and sewed both the outer shell and the linings.  The quality of them both is excellent and I've already worn them a lot - I love to save on work clothes.



On to the grey-green poly-blend skirt. I didn't love this skirt - the polyester generates static cling, it's not lined and the elastic was gone in the waist so it was going to be more work.  I later did a burn test with an off-cut and found it wasn't pure polyester as I'd originally thought but it's still mostly polyester. 

But it does have those great pockets and it's my current favourite colour.  I'd marked the hem line before I remembered to take photos.  I didn't like the buttons but decided to keep the tabs over the join between the elasticated waist and flat front sections.

I then went and cut at the final hem line rather than the cutting line - honestly!  Luckily in the kick pleat but it did mean I had to take in the back seam so I could add a back slit for walking (which had to be moved up in any case) and get around my mistake.  I was hoping to do a Dior style kick pleat but I couldn't take in the back seam that far.






 

On to replacing the elastic - not so easy as I thought. The original elastic had been sewed down with 4 lines of stitching which had to be unpicked.  It was completely perished, as was the waistband interfacing so I picked all that off as much as I could.  Even a long wash cycle didn't remove all of it. Then I had to resew the side seams and neaten everything up before adding a lining.








In a really bright colour that will make me smile and be seen by no-one else.  Then I restitched the waistband and threaded through and sewed down new elastic.  I hand sewed the tabs back on as there are so many layers and finally it was done.

Happy refashioning!

Mimi

The Not So Simple Skirt

Hello Refashion Co-op. I found a great dress at a clothes swap. I thought it was great...

Until  I tried it on. I couldn't zip it because it was so tight. I had my husband force the zipper closed and it was so tight I couldn't breathe properly. I am pretty addicted to oxygen so this wasn't going to work. 

 I decided to make a basic straight skirt. There were many mistakes and disasters along the way. I was eventually able to make a simple elastic waistband.

 I was happy with this very skirt but I had to stop sewing and send my machine off for service. I must have broken something, it wasn't working well at all.

Thanks for reading along, for more pictures and details go to I Can Work With That.