Crazy sewing ideas

Here are some of my scribbles for clothing ideas. They're pretty random!

Lily Pad Skirt

It would take a lot of layers and sewing, but it would be pretty special. 

 

1000 Prayer Gates Shrine in Japan

I made this A3 picture of the Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine (where the 1000 prayer gates are in Japan, that you see in movies like Memoirs of a Geisha) for a book cover competition at our local library. 

I had it on a handbag that has now fallen apart, so I want to do something with this little quilt. It's been washed a few times, so it would do ok on an item of clothing. 

A full-length skirt of this picture though? Stunning. Something for the future.

Striped Skirt Pattern

Alas, this pattern had been considered and rejected for two different fabrics! It's a shame to cut fabric to make something, because you waste it. I would be better off waiting until I have scraps or a small piece of fabric to work with for this one.

Shrimps in the Aquarium

I had another crazy idea with this one and some fabric with shrimps printed on it: what if the shrimps fabric was an underskirt, with an overskirt with holes in it? Like little windows at the aquarium.

But I think my idea is too odd. And then I have this feeling that the overlay will cover too much of the shrimp fabric up, so I may have to give this one up.

#lovelypennypatterns

Refashioning the Babbarra Orange Crab skirt

I don't think I ended up blogging about this, but the Orange Crab skirt has already been refashioned once. I turned it from a wrap skirt:

Into an elastic-waist skirt:

But it's still a lot of orange for me, I felt like it needed something to break it up. I usually wear this with a contrasting blue top, it's one of my brightest outfits. I still had some of that blue fabric left, so I decided to give that a go.

Both designs are from Babbarra Women's Centre, in Maningrida. They produce so many beautiful fabrics. 

The first place that I started with the skirt refashion was to put the name of the blue fabric artist next to the orange one.

I contemplated a pocket. But ended up removing it because it stood out too much. If I had any of the crab fabric left I would have used that, but I didn't.

I made the bottom of the refashion #1 skirt wavy, as it reminded me of the ocean.

So when it came to refashion #2 I wanted to add more waves. It helped that the scraps of fabric that I had left were all odd-shaped off cuts. Don't you love that contrast?

Easy, straight sewing to attached the blue pieces once they had been hemmed.

And that little pop of colour on the front from the artist's name.

I tried it with the matching top for work this week and loved it. It is amazing how much the top has faded over the years though!

#lovelypennypatterns

Skirt Refashion: Rainbow skirt gets a makeover

I hadn't worn this skirt for a few weeks and I've realised that I don't want to wear it to work like this anymore. I'm tending towards the clothes with more defined lines and shape and, though I still love the colours in this, I'm going for a different look for myself.

I could retire it to everyday wear, but I have a lot of those clothes already. So I thought I could refashion it, change the shape and slim it down, to make it look totally different.
This is the skirt as it is now. I made a giant square, eventually rounded the points off, and cut a hole in the middle for it to go around my waist.
Well, slightly more complicated than that, but you get the idea.

It's a lot of fabric. And an elastic waistband that has stretched that I want to unpick. That will be the first step, and it shouldn't take much. 

The zip isn't fastened to the waistband, as I put it in first. So there is a zip to deal with,  but I plan to leave it in and work the design around it.

My plan is to use another, straighter skirt as a pattern and cut a new shape out of this one. There will be some leftovers, but I use those on all sorts of things so it doesn't worry me. Better to refashion this and get some more wear out of it, as I do love the colour combination. It was one of the first pieces of Indigenous fabric that I bought myself.
Step 1 - remove waistband.

Step 2 - Unpick the pocket (which was then used to patch another skirt that had ripped).

Step 3 - lay out the skirt and see what I'm working with.

Step 4 - use another skirt as a template and cut around it. To do it properly I should have probably pinned or drawn an outline.. but I just cut it. YOLO

Step 5 - Overlock the edges to seal them.
Step 6  - pin them together and make sure they match.
Step 7 - sew the side seams.

The new waistband was a bit big, but rather than make darts to take it in, I wanted to use elastic for a comfortable fit.
Step 8 - Sew a tube of ribbon on to feed elastic through.

Step 9 - feed the elastic through and stitch the ends in place. By putting it through a tube, I can easily replace it when it wears out. 

The elastic gathers the front of the skirt very nicely, and makes it fitted but flattering.

Finished product: the back. I like how the hem turned out asymmetrical - complete unplanned.

And the front! Now it shows some leg 😄

#lovelypennypatterns

Silk Skirt Refashion to funky denim skirt

I bought this beautiful hand-painted silk skirt at a craft fair at the end of last year.

It's not the usual colours that I go for, but the stall had drawn me in with a plethora of brightness and I had to have this.

Problem is.. I don't like it. How silly does that sound?
I took it home, tried it on and thought 'Yes, I love this!' then hung it in the cupboard and haven't worn it since. 
Why? 
Every time I put it on I feel like an overweight hippy. There's too much flow, maybe there's too much yellow (which I don't wear), and I put it back. It's also quite transparent, so I needed to wear a slip under it and that's really hot up here.
It was going to go in the present box, but sometime during a sleepless night I had an epiphany: I can turn this into a denim refashion!
There are dozens of examples online where people have taken the top part of a pair of jeans or shorts and added a flowing skirt to the bottom. I think the blue will offset the yellow in the skirt, and I'll like the style more (since I've made two of these skirts already).
I thought I would go shopping and op-shopping to find some denim to cut up, looking for light denim, because I thought that would suit it better. But I had a denim skirt that I didn't wear enough in my cupboard, that I had already been eyeing for a refashion.

Because the silk skirt is transparent, I needed a layer under it. The picture below already makes me happier!

As it's a denim skirt I can just put the silk skirt over it and not worry about a layer underneath.
I went back to the silk skirt and unpicked the waist band so that I could remove the elastic.

Silk is strong, but when you pair it with denim it is a big difference in weight of fabric. I didn't want the silk ripping because of this so I sacrificed some of the top to fold the silk to make it stronger before I attached it to the denim skirt. This served a second purpose of shortening the silk skirt too, as it would otherwise be too long when attached to the denim. 

Much happier with how this sat on!

I also used a trim when I sewed the silk down, which added more strength again and would help stabilise the link between the silk and denim. 

It was very easy to sew onto the denim then, with some gathers so that it would sit nicely. 
And final product: two skirts that I didn't like/love, made into one skirt that I do!

#lovelypennypatterns

Colourful Car Seat Covers: Mending a massive rip!

So I've had my car seat covers for a while now. They started in one car. Moved to a second car. And I added a third one for my back seat, too. But as with anything that is used every day, they have started to wear. The towels that sit under the heavy cotton seem fine, but the top layer has some holes.

If you're going to fix something bright, use something bright, right? I plan to continuously patch these car seat covers, so that they just keep evolving. This came from my box of scraps. Seemed like the right size.

 I had already patched a smaller hole on this cover before I saw the larger one above.

I put a scrap under the top layer for this patch and used zigzag stitch all over it to hold the rip in place and support it. I stitched some extra support into the surrounding material as well.

Back to the big rip. I pinned the fabric in place with all of the edges tucked under so nothing else could fray.

Whizz it through the sewing machine and there it is, with a couple of cross lines of stitching for support. 
Doesn't quite match, but it fits the general theme.

 While I had the covers off I did some hemming as well, as I had over-estimated when I upgraded the covers from my last car to this one, with the bigger seats.

Back to comfort in the car!
#lovelypennypatterns

Refashioning jewellery

Someone gave me a bag of broken jewellery recently and it was like Christmas. I love getting these kind of donations because they spark all sorts of ideas, it's recycling and save things being thrown away.
The round links below....

... will be going into a beach glass necklace.
And the chain and leaf necklace? Pulled apart into several components and used to make multiple new items:
1. Beach glass hair clip

2. Long necklace

3. Leafy necklace

 I've always like black and green as a combination.

Even a humble key ring can be remade into something fun.

You can see the pink beads from the keyring in this necklace.

 The middle two white flowers? Also an old pair of earrings!

 A couple of the keyring beads made it into this necklace, too.

 Some of the pink ones!

The moonstone bracelet at the top of this necklace matches the other beads nicely. I had it for years before a link broke in the middle. Now it has another life.

 The middle rose of this necklace used to be an earring.

 It's pair was used in another necklace ages ago,

 This fake amber has been the centre piece of a few necklaces.

Add it to the old bracelet and it's a chunky statement piece.

I wonder what I can make next?

#lovelypennypatterns