Gloves to Shoe Soles

A child I have the privilege of caring for lost one shoe from the only decent pair of shoes he had that fit. Ugg, he had a second pair, but as they had fire trucks on them, they used to be his favorites, thus they were worn out.

Yep both shoes had holes in the soles. While trying to find something to put on the kid's feet so we could go outside one morning, it hit me, since these were soft leather shoes I could just re-sole them if I could get my hands on a piece of leather for a decent price. Hmm, would cheap leather gloves be big enough? I decided to give it a go.

Both the gloves and shoes got disassembled with my seam ripper. I made a paper pattern for the new sole, cut into the gloves the headed to the sewing machine armed with a brand new leather needle. (mandatory for sewing leather on the sewing machine!)

Well, it worked! Less than a half hour later the shoes had new soles, and as soon as the toddler woke up from his nap they were tried out and received no complaints! To read the whole story, with more pictures of course, check out my blog post!

Alyssa, The Sewing Goatherd

Just another old dress...

You people on this blog do some really great things with your sewing! I admire, but I just don't have the patience for those skillfully thought out items that many of you do. Is it wrong that I'm perfectly content to keep things simple?

I was excited when I found this large, almost pajama-like dress. It felt like an old muu muu, but had a nice detail at the bust line and cute little buttons. Very easy to turn into this:

Yup, that's a picture of a girl had no frustrations (like I usually do) and came up with something just right on the first try. The pictures came out a little less bright and vibrant than I would've liked. I took it in on the sides and shortened the straps. I added some little round studs around the top of the dress and on the straps. Of course the belt was added. Always the damn belts with me.

Here's the full post and here's a fabulous skirt that I also did.
Thanks for looking!

2 pairs of jeans and a floral top = a jacket

The #therefashioner2016 challenge is year was to refashion jeans! I wasn't feeling particularly inspired by this, until I saw this Zara shop window display in Edinburgh!

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So 2 pairs of black jeans and a cream lacy top, with a tiny bit of black, a lot of playing with bondaweb, and using a favourite vintage pattern, I now have a jacket that I'm really enjoying wearing. For the full story, including how many times you can move a flower, have a look at my blog post!

A Simple Update.. Plus an Eco-friendly Solution

The best part about sewing is being able to get clothes to fit your personal body shape. 

Before:

Too big, too much white, sweat pants.

After:

Well fitted, with the perfect splash of white, sweat shorts. 

I would also like to share an additional sewing project with you ... Eco-Friendly Cleaning Cloths.  

I decided to make these from a single large yellow towel I had. I liked the color but I had just one and it didn’t fit in with the rest. 

Here’s what I did:

First, I made my own bias tape with some cotton material by cutting it into strips and then pressing the back. 

Next, I cut my towel into squares.

Then, I sewed the bias tape onto the sides of the square cloths to prevent fraying. 

I think they turned out really cute. : )

-alyrocco-

Fix It Friday!! Simple Dress Refashion!

I bought this dress for $7.50 at Value Village at the 50% off sale.  I love the print and the fabric, it was just huge on me, but I knew this would be an easy refashion.

As you can see, it was far too large.  A size 28 in fact.  But I knew that I could refashion it very easily.

 

I turned it inside out and pinned in the sides and the front seams.  I sewed these up to my satisfaction with a long basting stitch and then tried the dress on to see if it fit.  It needed a little adjustment and then I stitched the seam with a proper length stitch, cut off the excess fabric and then zigzag stitched the raw edges to keep them from fraying.

Here is the final result and it fits very nicely now.  A simple fix to a simple problem.  Cheers, Michele