Skirt for me, sweater for dog, coffee bag wallets

Well, I haven't done as much sewing as I'd like.

I still need (rather boring) things to wear to work but don't want to buy new!

The before pictures of this skirt are even harder to see then the after so I deleted them.  You will have to take my word that it was totally shockingly bell shaped.  It is stretchy material, originally sewn with a pro serger so I had my doubts.  Fortunately it came out great with my zig zagging old machine.  And I didnt' alter the thin stretchy lining at all, doesn't seem to matter.



I got a cute tiny shrunken partly wool sweater at the local TS for $1.25.  I was going to make a hat and mittens for me but the realized it would like nice on my little dog who gets cold very easily.  I had hoped to have the mittens made from the sleeves by the time I posted, but ah well next month.



You can see from the one above that the sleeves have a nice gauntlet like look.  I just need another sweater to make the palms and thumb since I used up the rest on the dog.



I dont' know if this counts as a refashion, but I made a bunch of coffee bag wallets.  A bit old hat perhaps, but I had all these coffee bags and I needed to do something with them.  I love mine so much.  It is so thin, I can carry it in my back pocket of my jeans an I forget its there.  They smell like coffee of course, one of my favorite smells.  I wish there was a coffee smelling perfume!



Happy refashioning!

Kathy

Stripey top with ruffle, and shorts to skirt

Why am I re-making a sleeveless top and a short skirt in almost-October?

Not sure...  But here they are:

Got the top off the 25 cent rack at one of my fave TSs.   I've been wanting to make a ruffled top like I've seen others do here.  So I used the too long cut off  part.  Can wear it two ways:



or


And a skirt from a pair of shorts that didn't fit right. 



More on my blog.
Thanks for looking.

Kathy

My first Men's Shirt Refashion

Hi there!

I have a bunch of shirts that I want to refashion but I was afraid to begin.  So I bought this one to practice.  It is only a little bit to big, but I did have to take it in at the bust and cutdown/ reset the sleeves.

Before:



After:





I'm not totally happy with it, but it was a good learning experience.  Sorry about the dangling threads!  My post is late this month so I didn't tie off all the ends before I took pics.

I talk about it a bit more on my blog: 10 Minutes Each Day in an Unreasonable Manner, but I don't do a tutorial since they are all over for this type of refashion.

Thanks for looking.

Kathy

Refashion skirt - adding length Quick & Easy

I am 5'9" tall and this skirt was the exact wrong length.  Because I am no longer young, shortening it to above the knee was not an option, especially to wear to work.

I had some fabric that I was going to use to make a band of color around the bottom, but kept putting off figuring out how to do it.  I wanted to have it quick and not have to think much.

So I used my 50% off coupon and bought some dark blue blanket binding.

Voila!



Now I just need a bunch more plain tops to go with all the patterned skirts I have for work.

Thanks for looking.

Kathy

Dyed skirt and taken in top

This is gardening time for me and I have another arts project with a friend so I've not been refashioning much. I have plans and several things started to show soon because I need a summer work wardrobe! So unfortunately no before pic. Here is a thrifted skirt that I dyed green. It was lovely before, white and tan, but just not me. I like to sit on park benches and on the ground and it just wouldn't work. I did it in a bucket with hot tap water and salt with the dye. I left it in for hours to get this fairly dark color and swooshed it around every half hour or so. Not quite enough to get a perfectly even color, but I like it. Sorry about the wrinkles. I had just worn it all day. The tan parts turned olivey color which please me. Here I am after wearing it on casual Friday at work. I've got to get my dh to take my pics for me. The mirror ones are terrible lately. And here is a pull over blouse I simply sewed a couple inches up the side for a much needed work top. It was incredibly simple and I always get compliments when I wear it. I wore my pansy shoes that I last posted about to work and they got noticed! The pic I took is terrible. I'll take another next time I wear them. Thanks for looking. And happy refashioning! Kathy

Help! How to lengthen rise? or patch mid zipper?

I am only 5'9" but I cannot buy pants at the store due to not only the legs, but especially the rise. When I was young and had a junior style body, I wore missus, which has a longer rise and I dealt with the legs being too short. Now that I have a missus style body (for some years now) pants don't fit unless I find just the right talls. JCPennys occasionally fit with ok quality, but they are plain and polyesterish and widelegged, ok for office or conservative dressy but not otherwise. Eddie Bauer used to fit before they got 5 dif styles of fit, it bugs me to pay $10 more for tall and their talls are actually too long legged. LLBean talls are not longer rise; Long Tall Sally is always out of my size, etc etc etc. ANYWAY, ENOUGH WHINING CUT TO THE CHASE: Is there a way to lengthen a (thrifted) pair of zippered pants in the rise? I have a fantasy of adding an inch of nice contrasting fabric (or even denim if its jeans) a couple inches below the waist (and adding the same fabric on the legs somewhere.) Then I remember the zipper. Has anyone ever patched into the middle of a zipper, adding a part of another zipper? Could I just add the fabric around the back and taper it to the front where the zipper is? Am I crazy to even think of this? Do I just need to learn to sew myself pants from scratch? I just had the thought that I could shorten the zipper at the top and add buttons up to the waist. i am not great at either zippers or buttons tho. Plus tearing out and putting in a new zip is a daunting idea. Ideas? TIA Kathy

Put my new shoes on...

I started with 2 of these, a thrifted pair of shoes. And ended up with these: Yay! Details and more pictures on my blog. I have a top to show off soon, I'll wear the shoes when I model it. Kathy

Slight adjustments to make a blouse wearable plus a dog coat and introduction

Hi,

I am Kathy, aka concrete 'n primroses, an underemployed woman of a certain age with a job interview on Monday. I need a nice fairly conservative shirt to wear to the interview. I've never worn this thrifted blue silk wrap blouse because I don't like the collar, its slightly too big in the bust, and the cuffs fall on the exact wrong place on my long arms. The color is nice and very flattering and the silk feels wonderful.



So, I cut off the collar, took in the bust and cut off the sleeves.

When I cut off the collar the ends poked me a bit so I ironed them down and held them there with a bit of same colored embroidery cotton. I took this at night in my sewing room and it looks like the shirt is black.



I needed to take in the sides at the bust but I knew that I couldn't make the armholes too small. So I was thinking that I would have to rip out the sleeves on the bottom and possibly cut the armhole a bit and reset them. Sooo I thought well, I'll just take the sides in right up to the armhole seam and then see from there how much I need to tear out. Well to my surprise just stopping there worked well enough! There is a kind of open tuck in my sleeve, but that gives the ease I need and it doesn't show. Best of all when I move my arm the whole blouse doesn't pull around because the seam is close to my body where it belongs.

The sleeves I cut long enough to be 3/4 length and hemmed by turning up 1/4 inch 2x.

So here it is. Without, then with the jacket I'll be wearing over it. Since this is kind of boring at the end I have added a pick of my doggie in a coat made from the sleeve of a woman's jacket.

Sorry about the fuzzy pics, plus I need to iron the blouse a lot! I plan to do that tomorrow night so it is all nice for the next morning.





Dog: here are the sleeves, one cut and one uncut for dog coat shape.

And here is doggy modeling. I added a silk tie and velcro. Since this pic, I put some bias tape on most of the edges.


TFL
Kathy

My blog is 10 Minutes Each Day in an Unreasonable Manner if you are interested.