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.

Serious City Clothes

A couple of weeks ago I headed off to the 'big smoke' for a week.  Having lived in the country for almost 10 years now, when I head off to the city these days I always feel like a bit of hick in my casual country/beach garb.  So on the morning I was supposed to be driving to the city, I instead had a bit of a sewing frenzy and whipped up a couple of quick refashions so that I would feel like I had some new clothes for my week away.

The first item was this dress, which I felt when I bought it was pretty highly priced for a second hand item at $9.  But I thought the off centred layed front and unusual pocket were kind of cool, so I splashed out on this 'big ticket' item, even though I had no vision for it at the time.

Still not knowing exactly where I was going with this dress, one thing I did know was that I could take a few inches off each side.   The dresses style didn't really lend itself to being too fitted, so I decided not to make it very figure hugging.

By the time I had taken in the sides, I had worked out what to do with the hem.  I decided I liked that front 'flap' thingy too much to mess with it, so I figured it could stay its original length, and I would only alter the length of the under layer of the dress.  This would also allow me to have an asymmetrical hemline.  So I turned the dress inside out and turned the hem up so it would sit at an angle.  I then pinned it in place so I could try it on.  After I found a hem angle and length I was happy with I cut and hemmed the dress.

I was quite happy with the end result, and I liked the fact that this dress lent itself to the layered look.  

Dress: $9 (thrifted), Leather Belt: $2 (thrifted), Cardigan: $0 (hand-me-down),  Yellow top: $6 (sorry, fast fashion item from SES), Dr Marten Boots: $180 (last year from ebay - as new, second hand item), Jewellery: Presents from family  (Pirate Dreaming, Byron Bay - recycled cutlery).

I thought for something new, I will start putting pricing, and purchase information about each item of my complete 'after' outfits at the end of each blog post (kind of like they do in magazines).  While I love a bargain, you may notice that I don't mind an occasional splurge on expensive shoes, but I figure if  I choose these well, I tend to get years of wear from them, so price per wear ends up being pretty low in the long run.  I also try keep my shoe purchases green by finding specific styles I like in good second hand condition online rather than buying them new.

THE Muumuu

Well, what can I say... This photo is just not good.  The weather was pretty cold on the day this photo was taken, so I just couldn't bring myself to shed any layers (or uggboots) for the sake of displaying this dress - dubbed by my husband who was in fits of laughter as 'THE Muumuu'.

But I was sure this item could become something I could wear in public with a few tweaks.

First task, remove the shoulder pads, which were described by my 6 year old as making me look like I had 'man' shoulders :-)

This dress had no side or back zip, so I guess it could be described as a tunic.  But this meant that when I pinned it to size on my dress form I couldn't get it off again.  So I got a rough idea of sizing on the form, took it off again, then marked with chalk where I thought the new side seams would go, and then pinned along these chalk lines.  I followed this seam all the way through the arms so the sleeves would also be more snug.

Once I sewed the new side seams I trimmed off the excess fabric, and zig-zagged the raw edges.  I also shortened the dress a couple of inches while I was at it.

I made a waist sash from the spare material that was cut from the hem when I shortened the dress.

Being one of the coldest winters I've lived through in quite a few years, I didn't expect I would have the opportunity to wear this for quite a while.  But thanks to an unseasonably warm winters day, I got the chance to wear this sooner than I had expected.

Inspiration - Dogstar

I'm not one to follow brands, what I like to wear is not determined by who makes it.  However, I have developed a bit of love recently for Brisbane design house 'Dogstar'.  Their designs are just very different from other stuff that is out there, and many of their items can be worn in multiple ways.  Problem for me is that Dogstar is well above my 'stay at home mum' pay bracket, so instead of buying their stuff, I use it for inspiration.  So be warned, there will be more Dogstar inspired items to come.  Todays post includes 2 Dogstar inspired pieces: trousers, and a wrap made from thrifted fabric.

I love Dogstars VERY wide leg pants, so I was pretty happy when I came across this pair of pants at an opshop recently for $4.  Only problem was they were a couple of sizes too big for me.  But this was easily fixed, and if truth be told this 'refashion' took me the whole of about 2 minutes.

While trying the pants on I pinched either side of the waist and guestimated that I needed to take about 2cm's off each side.  So I turned them inside out, pinned each side (as shown above) from the top of the waist band to about the bottom of the pocket.  I then zipped them through the sewing machine, tapering the stitch as I went to line up with the original side seam at the bottom of the pocket. 

The second Dogstar inspired item I did wasn't a refashion, so I haven't included how to steps here.  But it was made from thrifted fabric, so it does still has some green credentials.  It is an item that can be worn as a halter top, scarf, skirt or shawl and was inspired by Dogstars Kuru Kuru wrap. 

I was pretty happy when I found 3 metres of this fabric that was perfect for my wrap for only $10. 

I must say I'm pretty happy with my Dogstar inspired combo.  It doesn't look to far off the real thing, and after only using half of the thrifted fabric I bought, it cost me a grand total of $9, instead of $350.

This is what the wrap looks like worn in other ways.

If you want to have a look at some of Dogstars beautiful designs, have a look at DogstarClothing on Facebook, or check out their website and online store at http://www.dogstar.com.au