A recipe for de-puffed sleeves

I have broad shoulders, and anything that makes them look bigger (ahem, puffed sleeves!) is something I'd rather just avoid. However, I have gotten a ton of puffed-short-sleeve blouses from friends offloading their old career-wear, so I've had lots of opportunities to learn how to make puffed sleeves into something a little more streamlined. Often I just remove the sleeves entirely, but I discovered a useful technique for keeping the sleeves and just removing the puff!

In short form...

Start with a shirt with puffed sleeves:

Detach the top halves of the sleeves.

Iron out the wrinkles, re-attach the sleeves from the bottom up, and sew a seam across the new top edge of the sleeve!

After cleaning up the new seams and hemming the sleeves to your ideal length, you will get something like this:

That's the gist of it! I go into a little more detailed description over on my blog post.

It seems like huge sleeves are coming back into fashion, but they're just not for me, so I'm glad I can count on this technique to get ordinary, unobtrusive sleeves out of any puffy top! I hope this helps some other people, too! Thanks for reading!

--The Unfashionista

 Hello Refashion Co-op. Sometimes I find some strange clothes at clothes swaps. It adds to the fun of hunting for clothes.

 

 This light-weight sweater dress was extremely small and tight. It was also super low cut. I would need to be a foot taller and 40 lbs lighter to fit in this dress properly.

I decided to use this green blouse to make the dress bigger. It had a rip in the sleeve, so I didn't mind cutting it up.

 

I cut the dress open in the front and inserted the lace panel from the blouse. I wasn't sure what to do with the lower half of the dress. I didn't have anything to fill it in with. 

I decided to cut it off and make a shirt. I added the waistband from my sewing scraps. It looked great with a high-waisted skirt, so that is how I wore it. (See the photo above.)

Thanks for reading along, for more pictures and details go to I Can Work With That.

If Charlie Brown Wore a Dress

Hello Refashion Co-op. I loved the fall colors of this dress the moment I saw it. The chevron stripes made me think of Charlie Brown from The Peanuts. When I really looked at the dress I decided that there were just too many stripes. It was a little overwhelming.

 I cut off the skirt and started making a top. It was a nice soft light-weight knit, It would make a great fall sweater. I was originally just going to turn that lower edge under and give it a hem. The lining got all tangled in my machine, because I was using the wrong bobbin. Now I had to do something else.

 I thought I should remove the nylon lining, because it was so destroyed and because I hate nylon.

This was a huge mistake because there was a lot of mess hiding under that nylon lining. There was some ugly net stabilizer around the neckline. And now it was all hanging out. Ugh! I am not proud but I attacked it and cut off the elastic waist and all the material attached to it. 

This left me with a very short sweater with a very ugly neck.

The only solution I could come up with (Besides setting it all on fire.) was to use the skirt I had cut off to make it longer. I couldn't match up the stripes exactly.

 I added some narrow elastic when I stitched the two striped pieces together. It gave the sweater a more defined waist and the gathering kind of hide the imperfect stripes.

I used my machine to stitch the neckline down and that kept the net hidden under the sweater. I cut off any excess netting. It all turned out alright in the end.

Thanks for reading along, for more pictures and details go to I Can Work With That.

Just Ducky Refashion

I have been very productive this past month. I have been finishing at lot of unfinished projects and let me tell you, it feels great!

I acquired this Donald Duck crop top a few years ago and was really looking forward to making this into a dress but every time I sat down to finish this the weather turned cold.


I began by making a skirt using this XL men's t-shirt. I cut just below the sleeves.


I folded over the top just enough to make a casing for 1/4 inch elastic.


Threaded the elastic through with my bodkin.


Once the elastic waistband was through the casing I stitched the elastic ends together.


Then I stitched the crop top to the skirt I just made.


Once both pieces were stitched together I noticed that it became a very short dress. I fixed this by adding some material from a white men's t-shirt. I cut just below the sleeves.


I trimmed that piece down to 5 inches and kept the original t-shirt hem. Which worked well because I would not have to hem it again!


I stitched the new white piece to the bottom of the dress.


I am so happy with this new summer dress and it was definitely worth the wait!


Happy Refashioning!!!

Check out my stash of refashions on my blog!

Going Gray On Purpose

Hello Refashion Co-op. I thought this white shirt needed a total re-do so I decided to use some gray dye.

This white cotton shirt was a little old, a little yellowed, and a little blah.

I wanted to use the dye I had on hand. It was for synthetic fabric but I hoped it might work for cotton too. Even if it only worked a little, it would really help cover the yellow color tone of this shirt.

 It worked great! The color was much better, the fabric looked fresh and crisp. I made the shirt more narrow so it would fit a little better.

I connected those scraps into a long tube that I wanted to use as a belt.

I liked the shirt with the waist cinched in, it was a great tunic length.

Thanks for reading, for more pictures and details I Can Work With That.