2 wins and a fail

I'll start with the fail, because that's the way my pictures uploaded.  I wanted to change this oversized, shapeless t-shirt into something that would suit me better.  I trialled a few other t-shirts because it was clear from the start I was going to need some extra fabric.

Got out my TNT t-shirt pattern and messed about a bit... 

 And ended up with this fail.  It's not an epic fail, more a 'meh' fail.  I just don't like it on.  I like the colour combo.  I like the sleeves a bit, apart from the cuff (but I could cut that off).  But, for some reason, it turned out much wider than it should have given I've used the pattern before.  It's also too short and the band at the bottom is just wrong.  This is going to be the problem for me re-fashioning t-shirts - they're always too short to start with.  So if I don't like different bands at the bottom I'm going to have to do some more thinking... back into the re-fashion pile for now.






On to the 2 x wins - sorry, there are no 'before' pictures.  What can I say: a sunny day, a few hours free, I was setting up the dye pot and away with never even a thought to 'before' photos.  These were done in the same navy dye pot at the same time.

The first one was a white t-shirt gone a bit dingy. I scrunched it up and wrapped it with rubber bands until it was a tight ball and threw it in the dye pot to mature.  Voila - stormy sky t-shirt.

The second one was a jumper that has been dyed at least twice before, both previous times a reddish maroon, which have washed out unevenly over time.  It was originally beige.  Now it is a purple, with a completely unplanned but awesome marbled effect from all those previous dye jobs.

Happy re-inventing!

Miri

Un nouveau sweat

Un recyclage-sauvetage d'une cousette plutôt loupée....Lol

Voici les éléments utilisés : un top imprimé (raté) ; une robe et une petite blouse que je ne portais plus...

Et après quelques heures et à l'aide du patron Indigo de la Maison Victor, voici le résultat :

Et pour en savoir plus n'hésitez pas à venir Ici 

A très bientôt, Elisa Elisa 

Moth attack rescue

This is more a rescue than a refashion, because the clothes are about the same before and after.  Apart from the holes... A year or so ago, we moved out of our house while it was being gutted and renovated.  Unbeknownst to me, the house we moved into was infested with clothing moths.  I found out when I pulled my winter clothing out of storage 6 months later and found all the holes.  And the moths had great taste - the cashmere and pure wool items only, none of your cheaper acrylic blends...

 

It's taken a while, and I'm still slowly working through the repairs.  Some I've been able to mend invisibly (Yay!) but then there were some other favourites like these.  I like them too much to just give up and go straight to felting so - into the chest freezer for a few days, washed and dried outside in the UV light, then time to find the holes:

This one has safety pins marking the holes, and is a WIP. 

For some reason only the right arm was damaged on this grey cardigan, so the left side embellishments are just to even it up (sorry the detail is oriented the wrong way).  I used scraps of fleece material to secure and reinforce the biggest holes, then doodled the rest of the planetary orbits in cotton embroidery thread until it looked right:

And this one had tiny holes but the knit is so fine I didn't like the way it looked after mending.  Now it has autumn leaves falling over it.


Happy refashioning (and rescuing)!

Mimi

Skirt From a Sweater... Second Time's the Charm

This is my second attempt at a sweater skirt. My first one was a flop, but I did learn a couple of valuable lessons along the way. And knowing is half the battle, right?

Lesson number one: When sewing a sweater, it is MUCH easier to work with a fine gauge knit than a chunky sweater. The first sweater I tried to work with was made of a thick cotton yarn that easily fell apart when I cut it.

Lesson number two: Sweaters tend to stretch when you sew them. I was able to prevent the stretching by increasing my stitch length.  I also used a "straight stretch" stitch for this project, which is one of the stitch settings on my machine.






This is where it all began.  I found this large men's sweater and intercepted it just before it was sent to the goodwill. Score! I also used the sleeves of a stretchy knit shirt to make the waistband.

For more details on this transformation, hop on over to my blog. Thanks for reading :)

Baby Sweater Vest Overalls From Adult Sweater

I love making little boy clothing and refashioned my husbands old sweater into some great sweater vest overalls for my son. Doesn't he look quite dashing?

 

Check out the simple baby sewing pattern and tutorial! It's free!

 

Winter Accessories From An Old Sweater

Hello there everyone! I'm just popping by with a rather simple upcycling project today - a while back I made some new Winter accessories out of an old cropped sweater that I wasn't too keen on anymore. Here's the sweater in question:

And here's what I made with it:

Rocking out in my new Winter gear:

If you're interested in the little bit of a tutorial I wrote for this, you can find it here.

Kids Refashions - From tops to skirts.

I thought I would share a couple of other kid's refashions I've recently completed for my daughter. They were so easy and she loves them.

The first one is a wrap skirt made from a ladies singlet that I purchased at a thrift shop for $2.

I was going to make an a-line skirt from this but once I cut the top off there was so much fabric I thought it would be cuter as a wrap skirt. I left the elastic around the top so it's really comfortable, and I added a cute button from my stash.

The second is a sweater refashion to skirt and legwarmers that was also from a $2 thrift shop purchase.

You can see these and other crafty projects I am completing as part of my 365 creativity project at http://365crafty.blogspot.com.au/.

Black Cable Knit Crop Top

"Blah" sweater just minutes before being decollared.

I have had this little black sweater in my closet for years. I keep it there because I need little black sweaters that I can throw on over a dress or a tank top and jeans. The thing is that I never pick this sweater. There isn’t really anything wrong with it, it’s just kind of blah. So after years of folding and refolding the same sweater over and over I decided it’s time to move it to the refashion drawing board. My refashion drawing board is really my dress form. When I have no idea what I want to do with something I put it on my dress form and stare at it for awhile. If I still have no good ideas then I leave it there and I look at it from time to time throughout the day and generally by the end of the day I’ve come up with something.

Here's the end result:

To see what happened between the "before" and "after" pics head over to my blog post for all the in-between steps complete with lots of fuzzy, badly lit camera phone pics. Sweater Refashion