Op Shop Refashion: Denim pants to skirt

This refashion has been sitting on my pile for a while. I wanted to turn this pair of denim shorts into a skirt. The first step was to cut the legs open.

The front seam doesn't sit very well when you convert it, so I have to open it up and stitch it flat.

I has to rethink how this would work, given that it was raw edges that I was pinning down. I decided to seal them instead. 

 This would mean that the edges wouldn't fray and would be more comfortable to wear.

 After that I patched the gaps with dyed cotton napkins and a bit of lace.

 Back and front: 

 This is destined for my Christmas craft stall! 

#lovelypennypatterns

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!

Who knew men's ties could be so useful?

I have an obsession with men's neckties. I think I saw someone else's refashion using them and I was suddenly hooked. They come in so many colours and types, and you can do so many things with them! I have a Pinterest board here where I've collected some of those ideas.

What I particularly like about ties is that they are sturdy, a good length to work with and they come in so many different colours and patterns.

One of my first projects was a dress made out of ties. I bought about 50 blue ties! Can't argue with the result though:

 I wove all of the ends together on the back and was very happy with the effect. It was a lot of fiddly sewing.

This dress was for a friend, so I'm still collecting green ties to make a dress for myself. I'm going to make it a long one, like a formal gown. Some of the ties:

Other uses
I often use ties as bag straps, because they are a perfect length.

Pockets.

And even make them into bags themselves.

What else do you think I could do with them?