Tank + Fabric = TANKDRESS!

Hi all!

Yesterday I got an itch to make a pretty dress. I watched a video on line (this one, if you're interested), and followed the instructions to turn a tank top I already had, and was ready to donate, and a yard of jersey fabric I bought on sale a year ago and never used, into a pretty (and slightly wild) tank dress for spring! If spring will ever get here, that is...

The tank top and the fabric. I was worried they wouldn't go together at first!

The dress! All styled up and pretty. I don't think I had anything to fear!

I love my new dress! I wore it in the 40-degree weather to a PTA meeting last night. I felt so fun and dramatic! I love drama in my wardrobe...I think I've finally come to terms with that. :)

There's more (including goofy pictures) on my blog, if you want to see!

XOXO

Velvet Skirt to Palazzo Pant!

Hi all!

Last weekend I turned this dramatic crushed velvet skirt:

Into even more dramatic palazzo pants!

It was pretty simple. I just folded the skirt in half and laid an existing pair of pajama pants over the top to get a template for the crotch:

Then I cut out a the crotch seams and then straight down the middle of the skirt:

Then sewed these bad boys up to make some pretty awesome pants!

I have more pictures and a funny story about why I shouldn't have made them so wide on my blog.

XOXO

T-Shirt Reconstruction: Necklines

Hi all!

My newest post in my t-shirt reconstruction blog series is up!

This time I'm tackling necklines, and I made four of them (with tutorials). It was these four, right here, in fact!

The Simple Scoop:

The Wide Scoop:

The V-Neck:

The Hoodie (I had the most fun with this one):

Hope you enjoy if you read!

XOXO

Six Ways to Resize a T-Shirt

Hi all!

I'm running a little series on my blog this week on various T-shirt reconstruction techniques. Today I posted about resizing the t-shirts themselves. All of the t-shirts shown below just show the resizing techniques - more is done to each of them by the end, but I think these all look really cool as they are in this stage too!

The first one is resized by taking in the sides and the sleeves with one seam:

The second one is resized by removing the sleeves, then resizing the width as well as the armholes:

This one is a no-sew option where you cut straight down the sides of the t-shirt and cut tabs into it...then tie the tabs together!

This one doesn't actually resize the torso of the shirt, but rather attaches a fitted waistband to the bottom with some fun pleating to create sort of a drop-waist tee look:

For this one, after taking in the sides using the second method above, I lengthened it by adding a contrasting panel to the middle:

Finally, I made a simple tube top (which I never wear normally but wanted to include it for those who like those!):

Full tutorials for each of these methods is on my blog post from today.

I'm really proud of what I did with this series - I'll post highlights from tomorrow's post when it goes up. That one is going to talk about necklines!

Hope you enjoy!

XOXO

No-Sew Jean Jacket Recon

Hi all!

Sorry for the long time since the last post. I've got an excellent plan for the rest of the year with my blog so hopefully I'll be able to be a lot more active here!

Last week I did a super fun project:

I had this jean jacket that was...well, you know, it was FINE I guess. Good for the weird half-cool days we've been having in San Antonio lately. But MAN did it bore me.

I mean it did have these cool panels in the back:

But what good are cool panels if you can't COVER THEM WITH BRIGHTLY COVERED FABRIC?!

Which is exactly what I did:

And even though fabric glue has always made me nervous, I managed to do the whole thing without sewing a stitch.

There are more details (and a few more pictures) on my blog post, which you can find here if you want.

Thanks for looking!

XOXO

Colorblock Heels Refashion!

Hi all!

First of all, I hope this post is okay. It's not "clothes" per se, but it is a wearable and it is definitely a newly-important part of my wardrobe. If this isn't okay, feel free to remove!

A few days ago I had a blast painting some shoes. I LOVE shoe recons, but I'd never done one before. I decided to start small, and I think they turned out great!

I started with these super-boring black heels I bought for work:

I taped off the areas I wanted to paint so I'd get a nice smooth line:

 And painted them with gray acrylic. It took two coats to get the full coverage I needed:

Unfortunately the lines weren't as smooth and straight as I wanted them to be:

So I took some black waxed cotton cord from my jewelry-making stash and super-glued them in rows over the painted edge:

This wasn't part of my original plan, but it turned out even better than I'd originally hoped!

This was a super fun and easy recon and a GREAT way to take a boring-but-comfy pair of shoes to the next level.  You can see the full post with a more detailed tutorial on my blog here.

Thanks for reading!!

Watercolor Dress Re-Size!

Hi all!

I tackled a project this weekend that I wanted to share with you all here.

At Goodwill a couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine and I were browsing the clothes and we came across this monstrosity:

It was a 16 Wide (I'm a 12) and it was so brightly colored and patterned and so old-fashioned looking that we both laughed and laughed and passed it right by.

But...I kept looking back at it...and looking back...and looking back, until finally, to my friend's great amusement, I blurted "I NEED THAT DRESS" and ran back and grabbed it before anybody else saw the potential I saw.

I figured, you know what? I can make this dress look awesome, adorable, and even sexy!

It was pretty hideous, but it had some neat details. I loved, loved, loved the pattern, the more I looked at it. And it had this cool pleating on the sleeves that struck me as really neat:

So I cut the sleeves a little shorter (leaving the pleating of course) so they were now more like cap-sleeves. I also took in the sides of the dress by around 2 inches, and brought up the bottom hem by two or three inches (just so it was above the knee and not right below it, which tends to look pretty frumpy on my stumpy legs).

The result was even more fabulous than I could have imagined!

It even looks good from the back...

I'm pretty proud of this recon! It's not a dress I would ever have picked out to wear, but reconstructing clothing is giving me a much broader interest in colors and patterns. I love it!! I can even wear it to work (with a blazer):

Here's the before and after right next to each other:

I love it! See my blog post about it for more details.

Happy Monday everybody!

XOXO

Hello and Hi There from My Handmade Hell!

Hi all!

I am so excited to have been accepted as a contributor to this co-op! I have been browsing for weeks now, and I am so inspired by the things you guys do!

I have this silly little blog I've had for a while, and I like it a lot: it's called My Handmade Hell and it's basically all about my efforts to match my creativity with my time, budget, and materials - none of which I have very much of!!

A little about me I guess: I'm a single mom of two in my early thirties with a full time job. So time is short! My refashions are almost never planned, because I often have to jump right into it whenever I get inspired. No time to waste!

I love to Make Things. My kids also Make Things. I post all the Things I Make on my blog - whether it be refashions, from-scratch sewing, jewelry-making, knitting/crocheting, or even food. I try to post SOMETHING every day, and I try to post a recipe once a week. Sometimes I fail miserably when I try to make something - I post those on my blog too. :)

Here are some of the refashions I've done on my blog in the past:

Sweatshirt to Romantic Cardigan

90's Dress Refashion

Hat from Sweater

Sweatshirt to Cardigan Refashion

I like to think I have a lot of personality, and I further like to think that my personality shows in my blog, and hopefully in my posts here as well! I almost always do step-by-step photos and/or tutorials when I Make Things, so I hope that you'll enjoy my posts.

Thanks so much! I'm looking forward to being part of this amazing community. :)

XOXO