Loving the Mens Shirt Refashions

I made this super speedy dress from a womans shirt for my younger daugheter on the weekend. 

So I thought I should make one for my older daughter too.

For this dress I decided to use this mens shirt that once belonged to my dad.  But because C is a little taller and I didn't want the dress to be too short, I teamed with an orange singlet that once belonged to my mum.

The singlet was a little bit too low in the neck line (hence no before pictures), so I raised the neck height by cutting a bit out from the shoulders and restitching.

I chopped off the bottom off the singlet - I'm only using the top half today.

I then chopped off the sleeves, and the top off the shirt.

I tappered both sides of the shirt to get rid of the uneven edge where the sleeves used to be.

Then I sewed the two pieces together, and threaded some elastic through the middle to give it a bit of shape.

I really like how the original shirt pockets sit in just the right place on this dress to make them useable.

And there you have it, a no cost mens shirt to girls dress refashion made completely from hand-me-downs, thanks mum and dad.

50 cent Mens Pants to Skirt

All my photographers went off to the movies this day, so I was left taking selfies in what I now realise was a very dirty mirror...  What can I say, I'd rather be creating something than cleaning ;-)

My initial plan was to turn these into some 'drop crouch' fisherman style pants.  But after a bit of mucking about, I realised that plan wasn't going to work, so I decided I'd make a skirt instead.

I chopped off the legs.

I seam ripped the 'crouch', laid what was left of the pants flat sideways and removed 12 inches from the back seam - I wanted to retain the original side seams so that I could keep the pockets.

At about this point I stopped taking photos as I really didn't think this one was going to come together.  But after this point I basically cut the front in half and created a 'wrap around' style skirt.  Sewed it together so that the front seam would sit to one side, and then hemmed it up.

Once I tried this on it felt like I should be heading off to an office job,  and the pockets gapped a little revealing the drab white pocket liner.  In an attempt to make this a little more casual I got rid of the original black button and replaced it with a white one.  I also cut out the pocket liners and replaced them with bright red ones I made from some offcuts I had in my stash.

And there you have it .50c skirt...

Dress to Girls Skirt

My daughter woke this morning asking if she could do some sewing today.  So she headed off to look for ideas in a lovely kids sewing book - 'We Love To Sew' by Annabel Wrigley, that she had been given for her birthday.  She decided she wanted to make the 'Super-Simple Skirt', which we adapted so it would be a 'refashion', rather than a new sew.

We started with this womans dress, which she was VERY unimpressed by...

The top of the dress was chopped off.

 A new hem was sewn, as the original hem was not straight.

A waist band was created using wide elastic.

Which was then attached - but unfortunately, this part was actually quite fiddly, and didn't really fit the title of being 'super-simple'. 

The finished skirt is quite cute, but little miss wanted no part in finding something that matched it, and took great pleasure running around the yard giggling as I tried to get a photo that would show the finished product.  

Conservative 'Little Red Dress' to Tunic

The before photo, I think, makes this dress look far less conservative than it actually was.

A few years ago I wouldn't have dreamed of wearing red, let alone a shimmery red with a floral design.  But times have changed... and I was instantly drawn to the intense bright red colour of this dress.

Well it seems I didn't take enough photos of this refash, but it was basically a 2 step refashion, so I will try paint a visual picture by some unimpressive word smithing of step 1.

Step 1 - as you may have noticed in my 'before' photo, this dress was a couple of sizes too big for me.  So I turned it inside out, wacked it on my dress form and pinned the sides so that it fit nice and snuggly.  I then whizzed these new side seams through the Bernina.

Step 2 - Mini skirts and dresses just aren't my thing, so this dresses new life was always going to be as something other than a dress.  I decided on a tunic top.  So I cut a few inches off the bottom.

Then I pinned and stitched the new hem.  

Now I have a 'tunic' top that I actually quite like (but I wasn't really in the mood for photos this day, so smiles and good poses were hard to come by ;-) ).

Top: $0 (Hand-me-down), Jeans: $0 (refashioned hand-me-down item), Pashmina: $4 (thrifted),

Levi Denim Jacket: $15 (ebay), Havaiana Slim Thongs: $15

Hand-me-downs - So as you will notice, many of my items are 'hand-me-downs', a term not heard much outside of children's clothing really.  But I've been lucky enough over the past few years to have friends who often clothes share when they are finished with unwanted items, along with a super stylish mother who regularly rotates her wardrobe. As a result I have mountains of 'hand-me-down' clothing items, and relatively few thrifted items.  This suits me really well, because although I do like a bit of shopping, and as much as I love hanging out with my two super cool kids, the two just don't mix well, so being able to pick up clothes when visiting my mum or meeting up with friends is fantastic.