Lace Jacket Refashion

This was one of those simple refashions that made a whole world of difference. A cut up the middle, a cut across the waist, two darts, and grosgrain ribbon stitched over the raw edges turned inside. Boom.

Come visit me at Wunderbar for more pictures and details. 

the mash-up blouse

This was a pretty simple refashion from two thrifted shirts, one knit and one woven (both a bit oversized).

I cut out the needed panels, pinned & stitched, and finished the neckline with some homemade bias tape. Voila!

Come visit me at Wunderbar for the nitty gritty details and more pics. 

chambray shoes

It's amazing what a little dye can do...

I used Evening Blue Rit Dye, about 1.5 tsp in a gallon of hot water (vinegar added as mordant). The shoes sat in the dye for about an hour and then I washed them in hot water and let them air dry. 

My favorite Rocket Dogs will live another summer!

Come visit me at Wunderbar for more tutorials and refashion fun. 

Anthro Inspired Polka Dot Clutch

I love drawing inspiration from Anthro. They combine and use fabrics in such imaginative ways. But being the poor teacher that I am, it's not like I can afford to drop $68 on things like this. But I can refashion a forlorn black purse doomed to the bottom of my closet into something chic and fun.

Enter old purse. I don't remember what it originally cost me, but it was 1) definitely from Kohls and 2) definitely on sale. I can't tell if it's real leather or nice faux. It's so old that the leathery smell is very, very faint. 

After some cutting....

and some painting....

and some stitching...

Voila! 

Come visit me at Wunderbar for more pictures and details about this project. 

DIY Wool Ear Warmer

Today I'll show you how to turn an old wool sweater into a cozy, feminine ear warmer (actually, you could easily make two or three from one sweater!). I've included instructions for how to make the flowers shown in the picture above, but this is the kind of project that you could easily change to suit your taste. 

Grab your sweater, felted and ready to go. Lop off an arm.

Cutting along the underarm seam, slice open the sleeve. Cut the now opened sleeve into two equalish pieces. Don't worry about perfection - we'll be doing a lot of trimming.

Square the top edges by cutting off the arm cap.

With the top edges pressed together, side by side rather than over-lapping, zig zag stitch the two pieces together. 

Now you should have a longish, rather misshapen piece of wool. Trim and shape the band until it roughly resembles an ear warmer, thicker through the middle and tapering to the ends. Mine was about 2 3/4" at the ends and 4.5" in the middle. Depending on how large your head and how thick your hair is, you may need to make it narrower in the middle. You want it to lie smoothly against your head and not leave an awkward overhang. 

To make a flower, cut a small square of wool. Mine were about 1.25".  Cut a small triangle from each side. No need for perfection - if the triangles are askew, the flowers kinda turn into pinwheels. 

Keep cutting! I used about 25.

Starting around the center seam (because we want to cover that unsightly thing up), stitch down your first flower. For some extra pizzaz, I sew my flowers with a sequin in the middle of each. 

Arrange and stitch down to your heart's desire. 

To finish, simply layer the ends on top of each other and sew them together. Depending how long your sweater arms were, you might need to trim them shorter. My sweater had pretty long arms so I cut off quite a bit. 

And there you have it! I'm really excited about this project. I wear my hair in a top knot pretty regularly, and this will keep my ears nice and toasty when I have carpool duty this winter. #teacherwoes

Come visit me at Wunderbar for more felted wool projects!

Old Sweater to Felted Wool Beanie

I love felted wool. So cozy, so versatile, so cheap. Today's refashion began its life as a $3 thrift store sweater and now lives in my closet as an Anthro-knockoff cap.

(My hat pattern is adapted from Handmade Home by Amanda Blake Soule.)

I took a similar style cap that fit me well and used it as a guide to make my pattern. For those of you guestimating along at home, here are the dimensions for my head and pattern. 

Head: 23.5"

Pattern: 10" (base) x 8.5" (middle height)

Note: I used a wool sweater with ribbing - this kind of pattern has more stretch to it (even after felting) than a typical knit. If you're using a less stretchy woolen fabric, adjust accordingly. If in doubt, make a practice hat! 

Pin your pattern to the front of your sweater. 

(Line up your pattern along the bottom edge if the sweater's bottom edge suits your taste - otherwise pin where you want. Felted wool won't fray!)

Cut out your pattern. Repeat on the back side of the sweater. You should now have two hat pieces.

Fold each piece in half (right sides together) and pin about 1/3 of the length from the top. 

From about one inch from the fold (at top), mark a second line that forms an angle to your first pin. 

Do this on both pieces.

Stitch along that angled line on both pieces.

With right sides together, line up the seams, pin, and sew around the rounded edge.

And this is where I should have taken a finished picture of the first step. If you just want to create a simple beanie style cap, stop here. You've made a cute, warm hat, ready to be thrown on and worn.

Buuuuut if you want to go crazy and bedazzle your hat, then break out the sequins and start stitching!

Come visit me at Wunderbar if you want to see what I did next! 

(More pictures of the sewing steps also available at my blog.)

DIY Wool Mittens (from an old sweater)

I know this one has been circulating on Pinterest for a while, but I decided to try it myself and make a proper tutorial. The important step those pictures don't mention is to felt your wool sweater first. For more details about felting, come see my original post here.

But if you're felting wool savvy, then this project is easy peasy. Trace your hand onto paper to make a pattern, cut out four pieces, sew right sides together, and voila! Easiest mittens in the world.

I really didn't expect them to turn out this well, but I am so very, very pleased.

Come visit me at Wunderbar if you would like to see more detailed step-by-step instructions and pictures.

Easy Peter Pan Collar for Tees

So this project has been on the back burner for a while and I'm thrilled to finally share it with you. I had trouble trouble figuring out how to make the collar lie smoothly around the neck's curve (my butterfly collar is only a half collar), but Abby at Sew Much Ado had a post about butterfly collars that solved my dilemma  - fold the shirt in half from front to back. Duh! It was definitely a V8 moment. 

The basic idea is to add one layer of raw-edged knit fabric in the shape of a peter pan collar. The collar is lightweight enough that it lies smoothly without pulling the shirt. It's a great way to spruce up a lackluster t-shirt! 

Here's the shirt I started with:

I added a fluttery rayon peter pan collar and knotted tie to get this look:

For instructions and more pictures, come visit me at Wunderbar. 

DIY Bow Flats

These lovely pink shoes have been sitting in my closest for over a year. Lovely (because they're cute), but unworn because I just don't wear pastels. And the long toebox made my feet look huge. Something had to be done.

With a little help from acrylic paint and fabric scraps, they were transformed into these beauties:

I had no idea acrylic paint would work so well on shoes! I was very pleasantly surprised with this refashion.

Come visit me at Wunderbar if you're interested in the details and more pictures!

Last Dress of Summer

This was my first project sewing knit fabrics together and I pleased to discover how easy it is. I used an old Loft shirt (from the last year they made substantial knit tees!), the bottom half of an Old Navy sundress (the kind with a smocked waist), and the knit belt from another ON dress. 

I used a stretch stitch to sew the shirt and skirt together, and then tacked the belt in place with some hidden hand stitching. 

This dress is so comfortable! And I love reusing pieces that were going unused in my wardrobe. The shirt had grown a tad too short for my long torso, and the "skirt" never wanted to stay up without a belt. I fixed two problem pieces with one dress. Hurrah! 

Come visit me at Wunderbar for more refashioning projects. 

Dress Refashion // Tie Neck Dress

So I found this awesome dress at the thrift store.

Awesome, right? I could go camping in it. (In the poor dress's defense, it was originally a maternity dress.)

I really loved the fabric. It's a nice, swishy, machine-washable rayon in an adorable print.

I originally had planned to knock off a particular ModCloth dress, but was unable to find a contrasting fabric that I liked. (Don't worry, one day....just be patient.) I realized the swaths of fabric I cut off the bottom could easily be refashioned into my-super-favorite-style:  neck ties! 

The neck ties are rather hard to see in these pictures, but they're there. Promise. Gah! I may have created my new favorite dress. It just looks like a teacher dress, right? I love dresses with sleeves. 

Though I didn't create a tutorial for this dress, the premise is simple - take up a longer dress and turn the trimmed off bit into neck ties (see tutorial here).

Easy Peasy Peplum

I was determined to make a peplum top, but did not want to buy knit fabric, cut out a pattern, etc. Maybe I should have called this the lazy man's peplum. Perhaps it's not runway quality, but it's certainly  cute enough for everyday life. :) 

I started with a shirt that was about two sizes too large for me. You want the shirt to be long and swing freely around the bottom edge.

Decide where you want the peplum to start and cut across the shirt. Neatly cut off the sleeves.  Adjust the side seams to fit your measurements.

Run a basting stitch through the top of the peplum, gather, and adjust to fit the bottom of the shirt. With right sides together, pin and sew in place with a stretch stitch. That's it!

Come visit me at Wunderbar for more details and pictures. 

A Clutch from Vintage Linens

At some point I inherited this from my grandmother. It originally belonged to either her mother or grandmother, but the stains had made it unusable and it then sat in Nana's garage. When I rescued it, its new life consisted of sitting around my guest bedroom being decorative (folded strategically to hide the stains). 

I've had clutches on my mind for a while now, and this week I took the plunge and turned

 this beauty into something functional. The tricky part of this project was preserving the beautiful edge work. My solution was to fold under the edges of the lining and sew it directly to the wrong side of the embroidered piece. Like so:

Though I didn't do any fancy pockets or zippers inside, this was my first attempt at inserting a magnet clasp - it's such an easy, professional touch! I hot glued fabric covered buttons to disguise the stains. 

Ta da!

For more details, come visit me at Wunderbar. 

A Skirt from Two Shirts

Somehow I managed to find two identical shirts at the thrift store on two separate trips that were months apart. I had worn the first shirt until it was starting to stretch out and so I snagged its twin as a backup. Only, it wasn't quite identical....it was actually a size smaller than my original and slightly tighter than I liked. But the color and fabric was so pretty, I decided that someday they would come in handy and put them away for a rainy day. 

This week I finally hit upon the perfect project for them. By fashioning a waistband from the sleeves and a skirt from the front and back panels, I created this swishy, comfy skirt. I'm in love with the deep raspberry color! My camera just didn't do it justice. :P

Kaitlin @ Wunderbar

Logo Applique T-Shirt

My husband has been in dire need of a new Mets shirt (he had worn his old favorites to death), only I couldn't justifying spending $30-40 on a t-shirt. Thrift store run!

This is what I found (less than $10).

I made a logo from the extra shirts (PTL for freezer paper!), and this is what I got:

Hubs is pretty happy (so I am too!). Come visit me at Wunderbar for details about the applique process.

Tie Neck Blouse Tutorial

I love tie neck blouses, but I've never owned one. I had this blouse, which I also loved, but it was hard to wear because the sleeves were a bit short and the shoulders a bit tight. When you're writing on whiteboards all day, sleeves are important. I decided to change those sleeves into a bow.

By cutting off the sleeves and refashioning them into neck ties, I easily changed the look (and comfort) of this blouse. It's so much prettier under cardigans and jackets now!

Come visit me at Wunderbar to see the full tutorial.