T-Shirts for a Garbage Obsessed Lad

G'Day from Australia everyone! Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend. Today I'm sharing with you three T-Shirts that I jazzed up for my garbage obsessed nephew.

Internationally recognised recycling symbol

Garbage truck

Recycling bin

Hope you like them!

More deets are over on Trashy T-Shirts blog post.

xx
Danya
(Danya Banya)

Holey Crotch, Batman!

Shoot, that month went quickly didn't it! Here's a quick little refashion for my baby daughter.

I started off with this infant bodysuit, which had been handed down from my older daughter to my new baby daughter, and, as you can see, had been loved to death.

Holey Crotch, Batman!

So I turned it into a baby cardigan instead!

And she loves it!

For more details on this refashion, check out my blog post here.

xx
Danya from Danya Banya

Colour Block Top & Dress

I bought these two little tops on sale for my 2.5 year old toddler, but they looked a bit plain and boring. Then I noticed how well the colours go together, and thought colour block.

So I chopped them in half.

With one set, I simply sewed the two halves together using a simple straight stitch (zigzaging the edge as I don't have an overlocker / serger.)

With the second set, I added a contrasting fabric to the middle to turn it into a little dress.

And here is my JJ modelling her new top!

Sorry about the milk moustache

How's the timing on this shot!

More info this refashion over on my blog Danya Banya.

xxx

Danya

The "JJ" Kids T-Shirt

I've been playing around with appliqués lately, trying out a few different styles. This one didn't really work out all that well, but I'll share with you anyway and hopefully we can learn from my mistakes together. :)

Add caption

The base is same black T-shirt that I used for The Big Sister Top. (It looks dark grey in the above photo, only because I've lightened the photo so you can see the details.)

I used the "J" template from my fabric letters, to trace and cut out two Js from some pretty pink patterned fabric from my upcycle stash.

Then I pinned them on and sewed around the edges using a short wide zigzag stitch in black cotton. I thought that this stitch type would give the professional appliqué edge that you see on store bought clothes that have appliqué embellishments.

Here's where I went wrong. Both the base T-shirt fabric and the pink fabric are very stretchy. I was worried that the top fabric would stretch more than the bottom whilst sewing, meaning that I would need to lift the presser foot to let it spring back into place, causing me to sew little pleats or gathers to correct. This doesn't look very good or professional, so I thought that if I stretched the two fabrics together, they would then sew at the same rate. But as you can see, it's caused a ripple around the edge of the letters which makes it look quite amateurish indeed.

I think this ripple effect is because when I let go of the stretch, it effectively shortened the stitch length on an already short stitch, so there was just too much cotton per cm. So this technique may work with a long wide zigzag stitch? I'll try that another time and see how it looks.

I'm also thinking that I could use this ripple effect in situations where I want a ripple. Like if I was finishing off the bottom of a skirt or sleeves. Hmm, will have to give this a go another time too...

Meanwhile, JJ still loves her top, and as I'm about process over product, I still like it too. Black is perfect to wear to Playsession as they often use paints that are staining, so it makes my laundry happy as well. So from a little fail, I'm taking a little win win win. :)

xxx
Danya

The Big Sister appliqué top

I gave this to my 2 year old daughter when she came to visit me in the hospital, after my second child was born.

The plain black top I bought new for a few dollars - all it needed was a bit of jazzing up.

I chose a simple font and printed off the letters, cut them out to use as templates. Then I cut out the letters from pre-washed fabric scraps using pinking shears to get a zigzag edge. (This gives a rag look, and also prevents fraying). Then I pinned and sewed using a medium straight stitch, being careful not to catch the back of the top as I went.

Easy peasy!

For more details, see the full post here.

xx
Danya

Christmas Onesie

Firstly, hi.  My name is Danya.  Pleased to meet you!

I live in Sydney, Australia.  I am mum to two lovely little girls - my sweet 2 year, 4 month old "JJ", and brand new almost 2 week old "Bee". I blog at Danya Banya, and would love to see you over there some time.

As a young girl I used to love to sew and craft, but these interests had been abandoned to drunken debauchery and other hedonistic pursuits that I loosely refer to as "my twenties". Now that I am older, (but not necessarily wiser), I've found my love for the craftier & prettier side of life has returned. I bought my sewing machine about a year ago, and am doing my best to re-learn all the tricks I used to know, and learn a ton of new ones along the way.

Anyway, on to today's refashion - a Christmas onesie for your new baby or perhaps as a gift for someone you know who is expecting.

Here's the front:

Front: before and after

 And here's the back:

Back: before and after

Using an existing plain onesie, I added the Christmas tree and holly designs on the front and back, using fabric and ribbon from my upcycle / scrap fabric collection. Essentially I cut out the shapes, pinned and then sewed using a wide zigzag stitch in a pale green cotton similar to the colour of the onesie, or white cotton on the white ribbon "tinsel". I didn't use any iron-on adhesive in this instance, but you could also use that if you didn't want to pin. (Although, I'm not sure that I like the idea of the glue on newborn clothing...)

I liked how it turned out so much that I made another one! Now I have one for my friend's newborn and one for my own. Come Christmas time, they can couple dress. :)

Second version: front

Second version: back

For more info, check out my original post here.

xx
Danya