The R3fashion

Where I live, coronavirus masking rules are starting to lighten up, and the weather is starting to warm up. So I figured that makes it the perfect time to finally share this refashion about making a facemask/scarf combo! Better late than never, right?

I started with a pair of leggings. 

 

They were a beautiful metallic design, but much too small for me.

With all the length, I thought they'd make a cute scarf, but a scarf is always better if it can be made into a face mask (at least, it has been for me for the last year!).

So I stitched a nose-shaped seam into them, attached some elastic ear loops, and got myself a cool ninja mask!

I called this post the R3fashion because I actually made three things with it. I sewed the scraps into two tiny little boot toppers and a headband!

 

More details about the construction can be found on my blog!

Hoping no one will ever need this tutorial,
The Unfashionista

Reversible fashion face mask

How many of you out there have become intimately familiar with face masks in the last few months? Where I live, it is required to wear a face covering whenever we're in a public building, so I've been making myself a variety of masks—the goal is to have one to coordinate with every outfit, and maybe a few just for fun!

This one is my favorite. It's reversible, with an owl on one side and a rabbit on the other. Because animals are awesome but still not enough, it's also decorated with subtle 3-D flowers.

I made it from the remains of a quillow (quilt that transforms into a pillow) that got damaged in storage!

Head over to my blog post to see more, including a link to the pattern. And stay safe out there!

--The Unfashionista

Bring me a higher waist

Over the years, I have gone from only wearing low-rise pants to refusing to wear them at all. When I got this pair of stretch jeggings online, I was disappointed to find that they barely stayed above my hips. So here's the story of how I gave them a higher rise!

Before

During

I completely disassembled the waistband, then stacked the inside and outside layers on top of each other to extend the waistline.

I added an elastic waistband to the inside, and — my personal favorite change — reattached the belt loops to the front to cover the holes where the button used to go.

After

Now I can wear these pants without having to worry about them riding down!

For all the details of the reconstruction process, check out my original blog post.

May your pants be always comfy!

--The Unfashionista

Hood to Hemline

I bought this hoodie in a rush, so excited about the unicorns and low price that I neglected to notice it was missing its waistband.

Fortunately, I never actually use the hoods on my hoodies, so I elected to cut it off and make a waistband from the hood.

I got a decently long strip of fabric from cutting the hood into several pieces, which I sewed to the bottom of the sweatshirt and folded under.

The finished product was just barely long enough to not look silly on me. Phew! I've been really dressing down since I've been in state-mandated quarantine for a month-plus, so it's nice to have another piece of fun loungewear to break up the monotony of days.

Check out my original blog post for more close-up photos of my work, and stay comfy, my friends!

--The Unfashionista

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

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!

Llama Rama

Once upon a time, I decorated a plain long-sleeve T-shirt with a picture of my favorite pack animal!
Behold—the plain T-shirt in question:

I was measuring it in the photo, so that I could create a life-size template on my computer.

Once I had decided what imagery I wanted on the shirt, I found a photo of a llama online, converted it to an outline in Photoshop, cut it out, and used it as a stencil to cut out some fuzzy fabric.

Figuring out what to use to create the face took me a lot of time, but once I settled on painted felt, it was smooth sailing! I sewed all the pieces to the shirt, and that was that.

I posted this one on my personal blog quite a while ago, but I wanted to see how it would hold up in the wash before bragging about it. The good news—it held up fine!

Have a llovely day!

--The Unfashionista

Reupholstered boots

Lately it seems my favorite things to refashion have been shoes (not surprising—my favorite things in general are shoes!).

Most recently, it was a pair of winter white boots that had turned slightly scruffy after 6 years of being well loved.

With some glue and a tiny bit of stitchcraft, I gave them new life by covering them with a fresh outer layer of vaguely floral chiffon (that was part of a previous refashion itself!).

Before

Look closely to see the flaking pleather!

During

 

After

For the whole process, check out my original blog post!

--The Unfashionista

The world's longest refashion

It took me six (six!) summers from beginning to end, but I'm happy to say, I finally succeeded in converting a dress I didn't much like into a skirt I mostly like. I went from clueless to overly ambitious to desperate to finish, to finally, finally finished! Never give up!

Before

After

In the end, it turned out to be a fairly simple skirt (in other words, it really should not have taken 5 years!).

The most challenging part was my attempt at a proper waistband and zipper closure (it would have been just fine with an elastic waist!).

Ah, well, live and learn! If you want to see a year-by-year of all the things I tried with this project, click on over to my blog post!

Happy procrastinating, fellow refashioners!

--The Unfashionista

The Ex-X Top

Before

After

This top was given to me as a gift, and I really liked its unique construction with the X-shaped panels crossing the front and shoulders.

Unfortunately, like a lot of clothing with "unique" construction, it just looked terrible when I actually tried to wear it!

I cut off the sleeves because it was too tight over my shoulders, and, when I cut the X-shaped panels where they met at the side seams, they sort of magically converted themselves into a cute little pussy bow!

Since the X in the front is gone now, I call the shirt my ex-X top.

Very minimal sewing was involved in this refashion; it was basically just a few snips of the scissors! Of course, I have a whole story to share if you're into that, but you've already gotten the gist of it!

Here's to pleasant surprises!

--The Unfashionista

How to take in a skirt in 20 seconds

Most of my refashions lately haven't been "refashions," so much as quick and easy tailoring jobs.

But one of the quickest tailoring jobs turned out to be the most interesting, since it ended up introducing me to a new and super-simple technique for taking in a skirt! Here it is!

You start with a too-big, loose and flowy type of skirt:

Then you pinch the excess fabric at two points in the back, and sew just the very top of each pinched area!

As long as the skirt already had a lot of gathers to begin with, the new tucks are hardly noticeable.

Here they are "in the wild:"

Best of all, sewing each one only took about ten seconds, so this is my new favorite lazy-day tailoring technique! A full step-by-step is available on my blog.

Thanks for reading!

--The Unfashionista

The Perennial Shoes

I have a pair of shoes that keeps coming back, year after year!

When I got them, they were white, and I literally loved them to pieces.

Before

After

I covered them with strips of denim in three shades, which I blogged in an earlier post.

After a year or so, I wasn't really happy with how they were aging, so I removed all the denim and started over with my now even uglier white shoes!

After That

For their third time around, I coated them in fabric from an old tank top (also a previous refashion), which worked even better than I expected. When they were all done, they looked like this:

Because there was tons of fabric left over, I also made a matching headband.

If you'd like to see more of how I made them and how I wore them, head on over to my original blog post!

Happy Spring!

--The Unfashionista

No more pointy hips

This red tunic is one of the many things I've bought online that ended up looking totally unexpected in real life (If you check out my original blog post, you can see how the top looked on a mannequin when I bought it, and why I was so taken aback when I tried it on in person!). The draping on the sides was constructed in such a way that if I wasn't constantly rearranging it, it would develop these pointy blobs that stuck out on either side of my hips. They had to go!

When laid flat, the side seams stuck out and came to a point at about hip level, so I just sewed new side seams that were more naturally curved.

And since the neckline was extremely low cut, I also lowered the shoulder seams so it would sit a little higher.

That's all, folks!

--The Unfashionista

The Modded Knotted Vest

I'm in love with open-front vests! They can add a splash of color to any outfit, and they're useful for covering up spaghetti straps and other skimpy tops when you want to stay cool but don't want to show a lot of shoulder.

This particular vest just wasn't doing it for me. I didn't like the way the front panels curved and connected in the back. I think a straight-up-and-down front opening is more flattering.

Before

During

I detached the front panels almost the entire length, and then reattached them so they hung straight down!

After

Now I can wear the vest two ways: with the front panels hanging down like a maxi vest (is that a thing?)...

...Or I can knot the panels in the front for a twisted look! I never had a knotted vest before, but I think I could get into it!

I have one more photo of the reassembly process on my original blog post, but you've basically seen it all! Thanks for reading!

--The Unfashionista