Skinny Jeans

Despite all the dresses you normally see here, I am actually a regular jean wearer.  Unfortunately jeans don't alter that well, and they are probably an item worth buying new.  But as I pledged to not buy 'new' clothes this year, when the weather started showing signs of getting cooler a few weeks back I realised that my pant size was a couple of sizes different than it was at this time last year, so I headed off to the op shop in search of jeans.  I must admit the pickings for decent second hand jeans are pretty slim, but I was lucky that the first two pairs (one black and one denim ) that I took off the rack actually fit quite well and being JAG and Calvin Klein seemed better quality than most of the other pairs on offer.  However both pairs were a straight cut, and I wanted 'skinny', or a 'relaxed skinny' style, so this is a straight cut to skinny jean refashion (or alteration if you prefer).

Well, this photo isn't actually that good at showing what I'm working with, but these jeans are actually a straight leg jean.

This gives a better idea of the jeans looked like before I started. 

I started by turning them inside out, and made the outer leg seam lay flat.

Then I got my old jeans a laid them over the top.

And I very roughly traced the cut of my old jeans onto my 'new' jeans in chalk.

Then using a large stitch (so it would be easy to unpick if I got it wrong) I sewed about a centimeter in from my chalk line.

I tried the jeans on to make sure I hadn't taken them in too much before I chopped off this bit.

After this it was just a matter of trying them on and taking them in a little bit at a time over and over again until they were how I wanted them.  Generally I really dislike alterations, and this was no different, but this is a handy little alteration if you are wanting to reinvent the cut of your jeans.


Jeans are so versatile, and can be dressed up or down, but I personally like them dressed down for everyday living.

 Like going to the beach in Autumn.

Running around with my kiddos.

and hangin' out.

Not my jeans, but I'm loving my mothers day present.  This silver pendant was designed and made by my talented husband.  

Thank you Shane, I LOVE IT :-)

In the evening we even got to play with fire... and camera exposure.

Again, you can't see the jeans but I just thought this photo was cool.

Although it might do these jeans more justice if the after photo were more 'styled', but in all honesty these jeans are for to me to wear on a regular basis around the house and doing things with my kids, so I'm not going to pretend I wear them with heals or expensive tops.   As pictured here, they will be worn with my wardrobe basics, and for this reason I'm not even going to bother pricing this outfit because aside from the $4 I paid for these thrifted jeans (and the recently aquired thrifted scarf that appears in the fire photo) all the other items have been in my wardrobe for years.

Hooray for cold days

I've been whinging for months about how hot it is, and last week (on my birthday no less) the temperatures finally dropped.  Yippee, finally I can move into 'winter' clothes and layering.

The item to be refashioned here is the black cardigan thing.  I've owned this for years but haven't worn it too much and have no idea why I never got rid of it.  The other day I had the idea of adding a really long zip to the front, with the thought that this would alter the style of this item into something I will actually wear.  

The first thing I did was remove the big front button and the button loop.

Then I tried the top on and marked where I wanted the zip to end with chalk.

(I am using a 60cm open ended zip that I picked up from Lincraft for about $3.00)

I pinned the zip in place, tried the top on to make sure I was happy with how it would sit

and then sewed it in place using the zipper foot on my sewing machine.

Finish... photo... 'SMILE' mum....

 It has POCKETS

Layers well... 

(This orange cardigan was one of my first refashion posts.  I accidentally put it on upside down recently and realised I like it much better this way than how it appears in my original photos.)

AND it is asymmetrical.

Well these before and after photos aren't too different... same dress, same 'cardigan', and leggings.  But personally I think the addition of a zip to this top makes a huge difference to the style, and it will definately get more wear now.

Black refashioned Cardigan/Vest: old wardrobe item, $3 for cost of added zip; Stripped dress: $4 thrifted; Orange Cardigan: previously refashioned item; Scarf: an old favourite originally purchased from Tree of Life; Leggings: wardrobe item; Dr Marten Elana boots: bought a few years ago from Ebay UK.

No Sew Dress Refashion

I've spent the past few days visiting my parents (hence the poor quality iPhone pictures in this post), and as usual my mum had a bag of goodies waiting for me.  It was actually pretty handy, because I packed in a rush and realised once I got here that I didn't really have anything suitable to wear.

So I grabbed this dress from mums bag of hand-me-downs and embarked on a no sew refashion. The dress is beautifully made, but felt too conservative. And that elastic waist band would drive me mad. 

So I borrowed a seam ripper from my mum, turned the dress inside out and carefully unpicked a bit of the waist band so I could remove the elastic. 

The next bit I wanted to change was the neckline as it just didn't feel like my style. 

The back had this little cutout with a button to fasten it. 

So I popped the dress on back to front and folded those edges inward to create a v-neck.

Then I raided my trendy mums wardrobe to accessorise my 'new' dress.

I added an orange beaded necklace, a tan plaited leather belt, and these beautiful orange and tan sandals. 

It still feels a bit more formal than my usual style, but I still think it's rather nice. (And I have no idea why I have this 'sticky-outy' bit going on with my hair).

It's a shame I can't keep the accessories too ;-)

And because I'm still at my parents and doing this post from my phone and I don't know how to do a side-by-side before and after shot on it. Here is the before shot again, just in case you forgot what it looked like before.   

Easy-Peasy Girls Dress

Miss 7 spotted this at the op-shop for $1.50 - how could we resist?

I think this was a strapless top, but we both agreed this would look much better as a girls dress.

Unfortunately it seemed to be a teen size 14, so despite the shirred elastic top part, it would not stay up on my 7 year old.

So I took in the sides at the top, but left the lower part as it was.

Remember this fabric that I cut from the hem of my last refashion?  I rolled those fraying edges under and sewed them flat.

To create these...

Shoulder straps.

And sewed them in place to complete this easy-peasy refashion.

The hardest part was trying to get a photo of the finished item.

Running...

Climbing...

Hiding...

And then she finally stopped to feed the fish.

This has fast become a favourite dress and was well worth the $1.50 we paid for it.

Restyled Dress

These photos are terrible, I had no 'photographer' on hand this day so I had to work out how to use the auto timer function on my camera.  I struggled working out how to get my whole body in the photo without it blurring, but I think you get should get the drift of the style of this dress from these 2 photos.

  I've seen this style being worn by other people and thought it was quite nice, but it really doesn't seem to suit me, so I decided some minor tweaking was in order to create a dress I would actually wear.

Firstly I chopped off these ribbon thingy's, just because I find them annoying.

I wanted to shorten this second layer bit, as the back was longer than the front and I wanted them to be the same length.  So I drew a chalk line as a guide for where I should cut it.

The first bit I cut off didn't even out the length of the front and back, so I ended up chopping off a little bit extra.

Because the original shape of this dress really didn't suit me, my plan was to add elastic to the bottom of the upper 'layer' of the dress to create some shape.  So I sewed a 'casing' on the bottom edge of this upper layer.

After I had sewn the casing, I threaded through some elastic using a 'bodkin' which is a nifty little do-dacky that makes threading elastic really easy.

Then I sewed the ends of the elastic together.

The other part of this dresses style that I thought looked terrible on me was the length of the skirt.  I decided I wanted this dress to sit just below my knees, so I measured and cut off about 6cm of length (the off cuts will be used in my next project).  

And because I am impatient and didn't want to pin or iron the hem before sewing it I just whizzed it through the machine and hoped for the best.

The hem worked out just fine.

With the weather finally hinting at cooler temperatures I was able wear boots and a cardigan.

I even managed a photo outside.

Dress: Thrifted $4, Boots: Dr Marten Wedge Calf Boots used from eBay $120, Cardigan: old wardrobe item from Tree of Life, Accessories: Old wardrobe items.