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

Refashioned denim shorts to funky printed skirt

I got these pieces from a friend's stall at the Christmas Craft Fair, the fabulous Liz Martin.  Not the use it was intended for (napkins), but as soon as I saw them I wanted them on a skirt! I often look at people's craft and want to wear it rather than use it for what it was intended.

 There are two different designs but they match very nicely.

 I had half a pair of denim shorts leftover from another project that were the inspiration for this skirt.

 So I chopped that extra bit of leg off so that it was less uneven.

 And was even left with a pocket on the back!

I used pinking shears on the edges because they were going to be too hard to overlock to seal the edges. Given that I'll be sewing over the edges, they should be ok.

 I started randomly pinning the napkins on. They're a good length, about at the knee.

 Some gaps emerging, but that can be dealt with.

Another test will be how see-through they are... but they passed! 

I needed something to patch the gaps so  I went into my stash. This is what I came out with.

I like how they look together.

Once I had the concept and general design finalised, I un-pinned it all so that I could overlock the edges of the material sections.

After that it was a matter of pinning it all in place again. I did it in a way that I could do long, overlapping seams, rather than lots of small seams. By pinning it all straight up it made sure that I covered all of the gaps. I noted that some of the napkins overlapped: it is was significant then I would have trimmed them so that I could save the scraps for something else It wasn't too bad in the end, so I left it.

The big piece of the echidna fabric was perfect for layering, because it was an offcut with damaged print.

 Accidentally sewed some of the pocket down, so I had to unpick that part and hand sew it instead.

 Finished skirt on.

 It was a little bit loose (the pants were several years old) so I took it in a little.

  Very happy with this project!

Refashioned Suit for 90s Costume Party - Harvey Dent/Two Face Costume

My husband and I are not afraid to dress up (because it's so much fun), so when our friend announced that he was having an 80s/90s cartoons birthday party we were in. I wanted to be a Ninja Turtle - Donatello to be exact - and in a rare show of creative laziness I bought my costume. I did add the purple ties to it and made the 'D' to wear around my waist. But I'm glad that I bought it because I may have run out of time in making the other costume!

The tights were a bit, ah, tight, so I added a little lycra skirt for my modesty. 

All ready to go.

Back to the real costume making!

My husband wanted to go as Two Face, a villain from Batman. It showed on TV as a cartoon when we were younger, and this was the model for the villain:

Half of every piece of clothing black and the other half white. Challenge accepted!
It would have been prohibitively expensive to buy two new suits in each colour, halve them and made potentially two black and white suits. Husband had a cheaper black suit in his cupboard, so we pulled that out to convert. He decided that he wanted the pants, jacket, tie and a vest done, but that he wanted to be able to wear the suit as-is again. This meant that it couldn't be a permanent conversion.
We bought an over-sized large shirt to craft with, something like four sizes bigger than his usual so that it would fit over the jacket.

I cut the shirt in half and hemmed the raw edge. Then it was a matter of pinning it over the jacket to match.

The front edge had to be folded over and holes cut for the existing buttons to it through.

Trying to match the collar of the black jacket was a bit tricky, but I made a good effort.

This is the jacket all pinned and ready to sew.

The fabric is all hand-stitched onto the jacket, what you call 'tacked' - a loose stitch that is easy to remove later on. He wants to keep the jacket and pants as normal clothes, not permanently a costume. It would have been a lot easier to whizz through the sewing machine, but harder to unpick late and also more likely to show marks when I removed everything.

I should have taken some in-progress photos of the tie, but really all I did was take a white and black tie, cut them in half and sew them back together into the two combinations. It's very effective, I think:

Onto the underclothes. My husband had an existing cheap vest that I cut in half and used as a template on the remaining half  of the white shirt.

It was much easier to pin and size on the dressmakers manikin. I shaped the bottom to match that of the vest. 

I left some extra at the back for overlap. 

The edge has gone wavy under the arms because the shirt armhole is bigger than the vest. I can fix this when I sew it all together. 

Once it was all pinned it was easy to cut out.Then it was a matter of hemming all of the edges and creating button holes.

I matched the tie on the black side with one on the white side too.

It doesn't look too bad, I must say. I didn't get time to add bias binding to the edges before the party, but I will later on so that it is strengthened and will last longer.

When you put it all together...

He did the makeup himself.

Thanks to my wonderful husband for agreeing to be blogged!

I think he looked amazing 😍

Watch out, Batman!