Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Just a few recons

Things have been rather a mess around here lately. Nothing that I really want to go into great detail about right now (and nothing serious) but just a mess. To help me get through it, I've been doing some spring cleaning of our wardrobe's (sshhhh! don't tell James but I took a pair of his fave corduroy's and am hoping I can turn them into a fun skirt for this fall) and seeing what exactly could be transformed into something else (to help extend the "life" of our clothes).

To begin with, my Mom gave me a bunch of her clothes a while ago that she no longer wanted to cut up and use as fabric. This one shirt in particular I was thinking about re-doing and making it into a really cute shirt for myself but I was afraid that it would come out a little to "grandma-ey". So, I hacked away at it and changed it into a cute apron.


Mom's shirt before
Mom's Shirt Before

Turned into my new apron
New apron - after

New apron - after

The only part of the apron that was not from the shirt was I used red bias tape around the pocket area to off set it from the rest of the apron.

Another re-do I did was I had this Xilaration cotton knit shirt that I got from Target a few years ago. It had this stretchy lace around the bottom that when I accidentally threw it in the dryer one day and it shrunk the lace in this very weird way. I tried ironing it out but it seemed as if nothing I did brought it back to life. So, hacked that shirt up along with another shirt that I had that I got from the thrift store a while ago (a polo shirt that was on the verge of death, but I saved it) and came up with this little creation (no before pics on this one). The green fabric was the Target shirt and the plaid was the polo shirt.

My new shirt

Added the shrunken lace going up the bust area. On a side note, it will definitely take some practice on my part with working with knit fabric.

My new shirt - revamped

The green band going around under the bust area didn't come out exactly how I intended it to be but I still love it.

Then lastly, L. had this red stretch knit onesie that still fit her everywhere else except for the crotch area.

L.'s onesie before
L.'s onesie - before

L.'s onesie after
L.'s new dress - after

So again, hacking up more clothes, I transformed it into a cute little dress for her. Super easy to do. Just cut out 2-29"x19" rectangles, stitch up the sides, add gathering stitch across the top, match up seams to the hacked up onesie, pull gathering stitching until it fit perfectly, then stitched up that seam. After all that was done, just hemmed up the bottom and she was off to play.

Skipping

L.'s new dress

Jumping for joy

3 comments:

onemotherslove said...

Great ideas! My Grandmama had a lot of those embroidered shirts. I cut them up and want to someday make a quilt out of them. I had enough shirts left over that I was going to make aprons next Christmas for my sisters. Your apron looks great!

alittlebitofscrap said...

I really love what you've done with this. :)

Angie said...

Ooo! You should make a quilt out of them. That would be very pretty.

Thank you both for your comments.