Refashion for Usefullness

While not a clothes refashion, it is something super useful that I made out of something I had no use for.  Technically I did this on June 30, but that is practically July, and for some reason I forgot to share.  My mother saves sheets and clothes she is getting rid of for me to sort through and see if I want to take anything for my stash.  She had a fitted sheet with a pretty leaf pattern that I figured I could do something with.  Fitted sheets can be a pain to use, but I was up for the challenge.

She also had a real goodie for me.  A laundry tower.  Dunno what it is actually called, but it is a plastic frame, on wheels no less, from which hang three fabric laundry baskets.  More like fabric slings with sides.  Anyway, it was free, she wasn't going to use it anymore, and I could use the space in my bedroom.  I had a motley collection of laundry baskets at that point.  Only one problem.  She still had only one of the original fabric baskets.

The design was simple enough, so I took it with thanks and decided to just make two more.  The original design had the channels along the sides of the basked (where it hangs on the frame) sewn shut, so to get the basket off you have to take the frame apart.  I put that one on the bottom.  When I made the two new ones I left the channels unfinished so I could add some sort of fastening so I could take them down if I needed to.  Right now the fastening is safety pins.

Random fitted sheet and a need for fabric laundry baskets = perfect timing.  Obviously this sheet had a destiny.  Too bad it didn't realize that.  I started by seam-ripping the corner seams so the fabric would lay flatter.  I measured the existing basket as it hung to get dimensions for my new ones.  Then I laid out the sheet on the floor to cut out the pieces.  The fabric was a pain to work with.  I don't know how they applied that pretty design to the fabric, but it made it very difficult to pin through.  I stopped counting how many times I stabbed myself because I needed to put more force behind the pins and I ended up pushing through quite suddenly.  Below is a pic in progress.

The sewing was annoying too.  The bottom of the curve was the worst part, both pinning and sewing, but I got through it.  I was determined to have my laundry baskets.  All told it took a couple of hours between measuring, cutting, pinning, and sewing.  Very gratifying to have it finally done.  Since I left the original basket they don't all match.  But I'm fine with that.  Here is the finished product in my kindof messy room.

Can you tell which was the original?  Hehe.  And it was free!  I still have some of the sheet left, but like they say about childbirth, I think I will wait until I can't remember how painful it was to work with before using it for any more projects.  Also on my blog here

Downcycle? Sidecycle?

So what do you do with a 100% gauzy silk overshirt with a dry-clean burn/stain right in the can't-miss-it-front?  With no way to cover the mark and save the shirt I decided to cut it up.  But why?  I decided to make yoyos out of it.  I had seen a girl with gauzy fabric yoyos on her cardigan with beads sewn in the center to approximate flowers.  Not necessarily my style, but yoyos would be more useful as an embellishment than a shirt I can't wear.  More details on my blog here.

(Mostly) before - just imagine the front isn't cut out.

Mark, you can see how the brown stands out so well against the light lavender.

Yoyos!  Lots of them.

What do you think?  Upcycle?  Downcycle?  Sidecycle maybe?

Not Quite a Refashion . . . .

So unfortunately I've been spending more time at work than home so no access to my sewing machine. I've been restricted to projects that are portable and can be done at my desk. Luckily I pick up crafts pretty quickly given minimal instruction. I've been experimenting with embroidery since I found a kit I was given for christmas hiding on my craft shelf at home. After doing some patterns I found online for kitchen proverbs (details here and here) instead of the weird little animal patterns that came with it, I decided to try out my new skills on a cardigan that has been hanging in my closet unworn and unloved.

I originally bought the cardigan to bring a pop of color to my wardrobe. I underestimated how RED this unadorned item would look to me. Just too . . . RED. I like colors, but red is a little intimidating. So I brought it in figuring I'd play around and find something to do with it. This isn't a refashion in the traditional sense since I didn't alter the garment itself structurally in any way. But I hope you'll agree it is a spiritual refashion since I took something unloved and unworn and made it something I like better and will hopefully be wearing more often. Some pics below and more details on my blog.

I hope you like!

T-shirt + curtain = baby bonnet!

So a fun sort of refashion, but not for me.  This refashion actually took place in the ending gasps of May, but I did want to share.  My refashion stash is mostly t-shirts.  It just sort of worked out that way when I and the boyfriend did our last round of closet purging.  Mostly his I should specify.  So his baby niece was visiting the friday before Memorial Day weekend and Baby Mama happened to mention she did not have a bonnet for the little one at all the barbecues they were going to.  Well the wheels started turning in my head immediately and before they had even left I was going over how it would be super quick to find a tutorial and whip one up, right?

The only hiccup was that a bonnet needs some body to hold the shape and t-shirt knit has exactly none.  Enter some white cotton canvas-y curtains I had bought ages ago, couldn't return, and didn't plan to use.  Sandwiched between two pieces of t-shirt, there was body and softness for baby head.  Perfect!  Some cursing (due to knit finicky-ness) and artful use of ribbon to replace bias tape later I had this:

More details on my blog here including a link to the tutorial I used.

Refashion shirt to cardigan

SO I had this lavender v-neck, 3/4 sleeve shirt that had developed a mysterious stain right on the front.  Well, I wasn't fond of it in the first place since putting anything over a 3/4 sleeve shirt is a pain.  I decided to make it into a cardigan.  I got the idea from a tutorial posted on someone's blog who I apologize profusely to because I lost the link I had to it.  I unfortunately forgot to take a before picture, but just imagine the ribbon on the front gone and it as all just lavender knit and you'll have a good idea of what it looked like.  Pretty boring.  Now as a cardigan I'll be layering it *over* other things so hopefully the sleeve length won't be an issue.  I'm on the fence about further embellishments because the grosgrain ribbon down the front and lace edging on the collar (difficult to see in the picture) is fairly subtle detail-wise.  I don't know what I'd do if I did decide that it needed more.

There wasn't enough width around the shirt to do a button front, so I opted for hook and bar instead.  Just two at the bust so above and below can lay more open and expose the shirt underneath.  I went with a black cami for contrast.

Below is a picture of the after:

For more of the gory details, you can go to my blog here.