I used to wear this skirt when I worked in an office, it’s really pretty but it hangs too low on my waist for my current wardrobe. I originally bought it at the Valley Girl outlet store for $4 and like 6 years later it’s still going strong 😀
These days I wear things of different silhouette so I decided to take the skirt in and make it high waisted, here’s the end result.
This was very straight forward. Skirt before:I tried on the skirt and held it as high as I wanted it. Then I folded the left over fabric and pinned it in place. This is the view while having it on, you may need someone else’ help to pin without sticking yourself XD
I then took it off and made sure there were no creases along the fold. Once it was completely flat and following the lines of the pleats already in the skirt, I stitched it down.
I bought this leopard print top/dress thing ages ago in Valley Girl and I love it to death but I always felt slightly uncomfortably wearing it because it’s quite low cut and the straps were too long for me. I already altered it by cutting off the bubble bottom so now it was finally time to do something about the top section.
All I used was some matching black netted fabric and a sewing machine.I cut a piece large enough to cover the cleavage area and folded it at the top so I had one less seam to sew.
Pinned it in place and tried it on to make sure it was sitting correctly.
Lastly I added some black lace at the top just for an extra detail.
While I was at the sewing machine I also shortened the strap.
I used white thread so you could see the inside:
Taadaa!
I don’t know why it took me so long to get around to doing this >_< I like it so much more and it is much more wearable now!
I’ve been on a bit of an online shopping spree…. well not an online shopping spree, more of an online window shopping spree XD
Anyway, getting back to the point, everywhere I keep seeing these big drapy cardigans with dolman/batwing sleeves. I’ve never had something with a cut like that and to be honest I didn’t think it would look great on me so I didn’t want to pay any money for one in case it did look completely unflattering XD
So time to DIY!
You need:
Some kind of nice fabric, again I was being cheap so I used some left overs from another project
Lace for the edges
Sewing machine and overlocker, I probably wouldn’t hand stitch this because it would take forever.
First lay out your fabric flat.
Cut it into a big square. To decide on how big roughly estimate how long you want it to hang down from your neck-back and use that as the side measurements.
Now fold each of the corners in to the middle.
And where they meet up horizontally pin them together. The corners on the left side go together as do the right ones.
Cut off the point at the end, this is where your hands will poke out of the sleeves 😀
Now stitch down the sides that you pinned together. I prefer to use an overlocker for this but you can also zigzag to keep the edges from unraveling.
You should have something like this 😀
And this is where you should have stitched:
Now really that’s all the cardigan is made up of… seriously. It’s just because of the shape that they drape so nicely. I decided to decorate mine with some random lace Celeste gave me for my stash.
I stitched it all around the neckline/center hole in a big circle.
I added it to the sleeves as well to match.
Details:
And yep that’s all there is to it 😀 It’s long and comfy 😀 I think I would considering buying or making a big knit one. In fact, I have a blanket I knit ages ago that I could easily turn into one of these!
What do you guys think Yay or Nay to big batwing sleeves like this?
Does sweater surgery still count as tshirt surgery? XD
In The Great Wardrobe Clean Out Of 2012 James’ old work uniform jumper was on the chopping list. It’s very soft but so ugly and seeing as he hasn’t worked at this place for almost 4 years there was really no reason to keep it.
Totally flattering? Not so much…
Bring on a challenge!
I love going through the throwing away pile of clothes because I can do whatever I like with them without fear of ruining something good! So time to get out those scissors and start cutting >:DThis is what I started with and I was aiming for a big, loose , comfy, so-ugly-it’s-cute kind of sweater for relaxing in.First thing I did was remove the horrible collar and cut it into a boat neck.
Next I cut the bottom into a more flattering “U” shape.
I cut down the front to remove the zip and sewed it back together again. This made a more flattering neck shape too.
There wasn’t really a need to finish the cut seams because this kind of polar fleece doesn’t fray but I zigzagged them anyway with contrasting thread.
Next some details! Plain black is boring so I used up some striped scraps to cover it with cuter hearts.
All different sizes and directions to make it adorably random.
Then of course my sewing machine died so James spent 20 minutes trying to fix it while I sulked on the couch.
Once it was fixed I zigzagged around the edges. Had I been even lazier I would have just used fabric glue 😀
DONE!
So what do you think? I’m loving it, removing all of the thick edging makes it drape so much more and it’s super comfy now!
Sorry guys it’s too comfy… nap time!
Tshirt/sweater surgery for the win 😀 And an old crappy jumper which was going to be thrown out now has a new life!
It’s getting pretty warm here… well warm-ish depending on the day of the week so I thought it was the perfect time to try an item of clothing I haven’t worn since I was around 12… shorts! I found some nice dark denim ones at a store for $6 but they were 4 sizes too big. Only $6 though so I bought them and figured it would be a good test to see if I could modify them and whether or not I actually even like shorts.
Here’s my end result and even though I don’t usually wear them… I really like the style. Good for warm casual days ^_^
So this was them to begin with, they were a size 14 and I am a 6 so they needed taking in.The easiest way to take in pants is to cut the side seams and stitch it back up smaller so that’s what I started with. These jeans had a bit of a flare to the bottom which I wanted to keep so rather than cutting the whole way I folded a wedge which left the bottoms of the legs the same and just took a chunk out of the middle and waist band.
From the inside…
Unfortunately because of the original shape of them the wedge that I cut out (which was basically like a big dart) made the butt part of it look bunchy. So to fix that I folded two smaller darts from the corner of the pockets to the middle seam.
Then I tried it on to make sure it was right and then stitched it together.
Lastly I decided to make the seams more of a focus point so I embroidered over them using a simple “Lazy Daisy” stitch.
And the side seam:
So there you go, $6 shorts and half an hour later and I’m pretty happy with them. I’m definitely not going to rush out to buy more but I do like these ones!
I completely forgot I made this top… fail! I went through a period of making lots of matching pajamas and things around a year ago and while I was digging around trying to clean up my craft shelves I found it! I’m thinking I might unpick it and use the fabric for something else now but in the mean time this is how I made a really simple comfy top XD
What you need:
Fabric
Stretchy elastic lace trim
Sewing machine/overlocker or a lot of patience to hand stitch it all
Scissors
This is the easiest possible way to make a singlet style top like this because it takes very little measuring etc.
Firstly cut 2 pieces of the trim which are long enough to go around your chest, measure around your rib cage. Then cut a rectangle of fabric which is around twice as long as that and as tall as from your underarms to how long you want the shirt.
These are my pieces with the fabric folded in half:
Overlock all the edges to seal them and stitch the trim to one of the long ends.
You should stretch it as you sew so that when you let go it ruffles up like this.
Stitch the other trim piece in the middle also stretching it.You will need to decide how high up you want the waist part of the shirt so you know were to stitch it. Having this band gives the shirt more shape. If you want to get fancy you can sew it in a kind of curved line so it leaves more space for your chest in the middle.
Fold the whole thing in half with the good side in and stitch the edges together down the side.
If you want you can edge the bottoms with a proper seam but seeing as this was not going to be seen by anyone other than James, I left them overlocked. I’m not convinced he could tell the difference anyway XD
Add a couple of straps from the same stretchy trim and that’s all done!
Once you get the basic shape understood you can made all kinds of variations. My favorite around the house dress was made using the same idea but with a much longer skirt, a little lace trim at the bottom and pinching the fabric at the bust to give a very flattering line.
I know some of you have been waiting for patterns for a lot of the older sewing tutorials I did, well I’ve just finished off the first batch ready to export and upload as well as some random wallpapers that I got carried away with making so next week I’ll put them all up for a downloading day haha!
Illustrator. Strong tea, knitting, watercolours, and making a video game called Moonlight in Garland. Living with her adorable husband Jimmy, fluffy puppy Miss Lottie and Bergamot Bunny in Melbourne, Australia.
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