Floral Wristband

Tired of wearing your headbands on your head?

How about wrapping them around your wrist.

My daughters LOVE shopping at thrift stores. Erika bought this old crepe dress from the DI a couple of weeks ago. We fixed the neck to be more modest and shortened the sleeves. I decided to make her a floral headband with the left over fabric from the sleeves (kind of like the one in this old tutorial).....she decided to wear it as a wristband instead!

Apparently it got a lot of oooh's and aaaah's at the Jr High!

I love how kids these days dare to do different, funky things with their clothes, I NEVER would have dared to be different when I was 15!

While The Bread Sticks Baked.....

...We made some leg warmers.

(just that fast)

Liesl found this bright, big, bulky sweater at the D.I.

She bought it, not because it was cute, but because she saw

something else in it. Leg warmers and a sweater vest.

So, we cut off the sleeves.

Zig-zagged the raw edge. This was one loosely woven sweater.

We then turned the zig-zagged edge under about an inch and
a half. If she had wanted them to stay up I would have slipped
some wide elastic in the casing. But she wanted them to
slouch down so we just left them with a wide hem.

And before the dinger dinged (bread sticks remember)
......she had some leg warmers.

Ruffle Neck Onesie

It seems as though the whole sewing world is making knit ruffles these days.

I often wonder who comes up with idea's. My personal opinion is that there are no original idea's. One idea spawns a thought in another crafter, who tweaks it, which inspires another crafter to tweak it again, etc. etc. I love watching things like this evolve, I think it is so interesting.

So, here's a sneak peak at my tweak. I've been rufflin' my guts out getting ready for Mindy Mae's Market on Dec 4-5. These ruffles are actually made from ribbed knee high stockings. Go figure! Cut strips about an inch and a half wide. Sew the ends together to create one long strip, then all you have to do is bast down the center and pull your string. The trick to making it look so fluffy is to hand stitch the ruffle onto the onesie. That way there are no machine stitches to be seen. I would love to see what ruffley tweak you're working on....leave me a link.

Cut It Out!

A month or so ago, Scissors and I went window shopping at Urban Outfitters. (For those new to my blog, "Scissors" is my 15 year old daughter who loves to cut up all of our old clothes and turn them into new clothes). We love their funky, outside of the box kinda clothing. The problem is that it seems like their cutest things are almost always immodest, so we rarely shop there. We just look, get ideas and then go home to recreate them in a more modest version.

Well, on that particular hunting trip we came across an adorable embellishment idea, but it was spread across a tank so tiny that you could see the girls (not my girls..."the" girls) and all their neighbors!!

So, I took about an hour tonight and turned a plain T into something

not quite so plain and definitely unique.
First I cut the neck band off which took it from sporty
to something a little more feminine. The great thing about
knit fabric is that it doesn't fray. For this particular look you don't
need to re-enforce it or hem it, just cut away. The original shirt
also had raw edges.

Taking a cue from my girls, who always cut a V into their t-shirt
necks, I too cut a little notch in the middle of the neckline.


Next I ironed "Wonder Under" on the back side of a large rectangle of cotton. I didn't measure, but you will get the whole size idea in the coming pictures.


Lay the cotton on top of your t-shirt and cut a rough pattern of the neckline. You don't have to be precise at all because in just one minute you are going to cut the heck out of it and you can fiddle with it throughout the process to get it right where you want it to be.

pardon the fuzzy picture, I'm still kind of shaky from the flu.

Now the fun part begins. Cut a random, uneven shape all around the outer edge, then cut little holes out of the center as shown below.

fuzzy again, sorry!

I took it up and over the shoulders as well so that it spills out a little on the back.

Next, you peel the Wonder Under off of the back side.

Position it exactly where you want it on the shirt and iron

it on. You could stop there, but I think it looks

tacky if you don't sew it on as well. So.....

Rev up the old machine and stitch along the center of the whole embellishment piece. Clip all of your threads and there you have it... a unique little T.


I think it will be cute under a Levi jacket with some silver jewelry, or with a big old fabric flower pinned to one side. I saved the neck for just this reason, but haven't gotten around to turning it into a flower. Just think of all the applications for this. You could do it all around the hem of a T or down the sleeves. You could punch it up with color, use patterned fabric as I did or go with plain fabric. The possibilities are endless. Now you go out and try it and remember what Scissors says, "don't be afraid to cut"!

Remember This shirt?

Remember this shirt? Well, "Scissors" (she who cuts

up all our clothes) got ahold of it and well.....

...now she has a cute little vest.

This little girl of mine has taught me not to

be afraid to cut it up. This little vest took

several revisions to get it right. It went something

like this.... cut, sew, nope that's freaky lookin'...

cut, sew, nope, still freaky lookin'....etc, etc until

we got it just how she wanted it.

I wish I had dared cut up old things when they

were tiny, I never would have had to buy

clothes!

Some People Play With Their Food...

...We Play With Our Clothes.

I bought my 19 year old K.U. guy this shirt

(it was a full shirt at the time)

a couple of years ago. I guess I was hoping for

a preppy thing to happen. He took it out of

the sack, said thanks and then hung it in my

closet. I don't know if that was a nice way of

saying he didn't like my taste or what, but there

it has hung for these two lonely years. I

saw it this morning while putting laundry away

and bells and whistles started going off!

Here it is this afternoon..... is that fun or what?

I just cut the bottom off, unpicked the pocket, sewed it back on the part I had just lopped off and turned that little hummer into this cute little skirt. I even made a little scalloped edge hankie to go in the pocket, just like Daddy. This is even one the "clothing deconstructor" and "funky hippy girl" might wear (longer of course).

Refashioned Jean Skirt

In between General Conference sessions this afternoon we went on a "leaf drive" . We drove up Old Snowbasin Rd and found a sweet little trail to leaf hunt on. While taking pictures I noticed that Erika had on our latest fashion experiment.

She found a white levi skirt at the D.I. (our equivalent of a thrift store). She wanted to make it unique so we went to the fabric shop and found some fabric that reminded her of a scarf we recently saw at "Urban Outfitters". We cut the skirt straight across at the bottom, about 1/2" below the zipper, gathered the fabric and sewed it on where we had just cut. She loves the raw edge look so we re-enforced the bottom with a straight stitch, but left it raw.

Sew Simple!

Here We Go Again

Blue Scrap Shirt

My girls and I have so much fun playing with our clothes!
Here's our latest creation... inspired from a cute little petal covered backpack

I saw on Happy Together, and all the fun refashioning done on My Mama Made It.

I found a cheapy little white T at Wallyworld (Walmart) for $3.00, knowing we'd find something fun to do with it.

I made a bunch of roundish little hearts out of my favorite fabric (thisweek).

I made the cutting easy by folding up a long strip of fabric accordion style...

...and cutting them all at once.


I zig-zag tacked each little heart around the shoulder and neck of the shirt, with a little tuck in it to make it look like a petal.

I had a little "moment" while ironing it. Grrrrr! I ironed over the tag on the neck by accident and then smeared ink around the part of the neck that I was going to leave plain. Luckily, that's what refashioning is all about. Have a spot? Cover it up. So I just kept on adding petals until I covered up my accident.






Erika tried it on with a long jersey vest today and she looked so, so cute!

Modest Is The Hottest

When my kids were little and we were visiting the mall I would always tell them I'd give a dollar to the first one who saw a modest prom dress. OK.... I confess I said this for two reasons, one: because I knew they wouldn't find one and I wouldn't be out the dollar, and two: a little brain washing never hurt anyone. If mom would offer a whole dollar for a modest dress, then modest dresses must be really cool things. Fast forward about 12 years......what do you do when you have to actually find a modest dress? In most cases, buy the immodest one and fix her up!

All it took was a little visit to the fabric store for blue silky stuff and brown tulle.

What once was a strapless dress is now something Liesl will feel comfortable wearing. All you need to do is measure over the shoulders and cut a length of fabric to fit. I cut it 6" wide and then gather each end so that it ends up 3" wide. All that's left is to hand stitch it to the inside of the bodice (back and front). EASY PEASY!

Can I just say,,,, I love her funky style!

She's Got The Bug

So, while other mom's are running their girls to AE and Hollister, this mom sits back and shakes her head as her girl raids the old clothes closet, the fabric stash and creates more cuteness. My pocket book thanks you Miss Er'.

One old, plain brown T.

This one's been sewing since she was 7, so she's

feeling pretty comfy here at the machine.

Erika came home from the Xterra this morning and
said, I saw the cutest little girl with a guitar
on her shirt at the race. I want a guitar shirt!
So, she came up with one.
She is so, so into the raw edge look. I even had to
talk her into cutting some of the loose threads.



I can't wait to see what she comes up with next!

Don't Be Afraid To Cut!

I am lovin' that my girls are totally into refashioning old clothes.

Erika found an old cardigan of mine (yea, it was in the bottom of my closet), I guess that makes it fair game. She whipped out the scissors and snipped the sleeves off. What once was a frumpy old mom cardigan is reborn as a totally hip fashion statement.

WAY TO GO ERIKA!!!!