My Brother's Japanese Jacket

I lived in Japan for 9 months, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. They also have amazing textiles... so my family members all got a kimono. I regret not buying more, now that I can do all sorts of things with fabric, because I would have some amazing dresses by now! Next trip... though I'm starting to eye this one on the wall....

As he was unlikely to wear it as-is, my brother asked me to turn his kimono into a jacket.
No before picture, sorry, this post was semi-retroactive. It was a black kimono with a patterned bottom though. Phoenixes, even.
What I decided to do was unpick all of the pieces. It was a thin, silk kimono, so it wouldn't be a very warm jacket. I scoured the shops online and found a decent men's jacket that would fit my bro.

I wrapped the bottom pattern around the body of the jacket and pinned it into place

Pretty much a perfect fit!

It sounds odd, but the blacks matched really well, too, so the addition doesn't look out of place.

There was an extra motif, which I pinned to the sleeves of the jacket for extra detail.

Because of the thickness and shape of the sleeve, it was too hard to get all of this through my sewing machine. So I had to hand-sew all of it! This is the sleeve partially done:

It was going to look great when it was done!

I ran the back of the jacket through the machine- hand sewing would have taken forever!

And here it is, minus all of those pins:

Long cotton navy skirt - fix and refashion

I’m meant to be going to a course in Tasmania in the middle of the year, world craziness pending. Given that it’s going to be COLD COLD COLD I have been keeping an eye out in op shops for appropriate things to wear. This long cotton skirt was perfect!

It also hassss...... pockets!

When I looked closer it had already been taken in at the waist. I didn’t need it to be, so I unpicked it.

Unfortunately the fabric must have worn through, because I also got a hole out of this.

Oops! How to fix it? Luckily I had these fabric flower parts sitting on my sewing table. They came off a card I took from my grandmother’s stash. I remember making little patchwork inserts for Christmas cards when I was younger.

The little white flower on top was from my wedding bouquet. I made mine out of brooches and fabric flowers, which mum contributed most of 😊

This was right on the side seam. I needed to stitch them down fully otherwise they would stick out and look odd. It was a hand-sewing job. Enter Star Trek!

Very happy with the end result. It’s very comfortable!

Super Hero Nerd Refashion: from bedsheets to skirt

It's been a while! July, I think? I changed jobs and did 5 craft markets, which made life a bit busy. I spent a lot of time crafting things to sell and not sewing so many things for myself. Or blogging! Time to give it a go again.

You might remember the skirt refashion that I did to make my niece some superhero capes.
I started with these:

And now have these leftover:

The skirts were a bit short for me and sadly lacking in pockets. The more I looked at them, I thought they might be a bit young for me, too. The purple was too pastel for me (and the red was a better base colour). I decided to make a general nerd skirt, as I had patches from games and t-shirt logos that I could add on.

Then I found a set of Star Wars Stormtrooper bedsheets at the Op Shop fro $12 and I was inspired!

Got to keep the logo!

This top part of the sheet will make a good waist band, so I set it aside after I had cut a dress out of the fabric (but that's another post!).

I grabbed my rockabilly pattern and used the skirt as a template.

It uses a lot of fabric, so it would leave me plenty of room to sew patches onto.

But I had already cut two other skirts out of the fabric to make them for friends, so I got to use some of the Supergirl fabric from the capes to create a new panel. The more nerd the merrier!

The top of the fabric is still crinkled from when it had elastic in it! 

I pinned and sewed the patches on before I joined the skirt panels, so that it would be less unwieldy to maneuver through the machine. 

White zip for the white skirt.

It needed pockets, too, which I have decided are really required on everything. Skirts can feel so useless without them! 

But rather than add them into the seams or go any further I decided I didn't want to wear this skirt... It's sat in my unfinished pile for months now and I honestly think I'll cut it up and make shopping bags out of it instead. My sense of style has changed and I've moved away from the huge skirts for the moment.

An odd blog update, but there it is. I have finished photos of a few more things to update on posts so I had better hop to it!

Happy New Year #lovelypennypatterns

Pillowcase + Skirt = Funkier skirt!

Not much blogging happening at the moment-I think I spend so much time on a computer at work that I don't want to do it at home! 
But I have been sewing. 
I picked up an op shop skirt a while back because I liked the colours. Too small for me, but with some upcyling it would be nice for someone else. A lovely light denim and a cool vine pattern on it.

In my stash I had a pillow case that I had dyed from white/yellow flowers to blue/green flowers.

I thought it was a pretty good match to the skirt. I pinned it in place to try.

And I really liked it. The bit I chopped off the corner made a great pocket, too. 

I like good-sized pockets on my outfits! 

And there you have it: a whole new skirt! 

A bit longer, but I love the shape of it.

The next craft stall is in May, so hopefully this goes to a good home. 
#lovelypennypatterns

Refashion from black and white pants to skirt

Remember these pants? Well, I do wear them, but only sometimes because they still weren't quite right. In the crotch. I think if I had used a pattern when I cut them down from the bigger size I probably could have avoided this, which is a less learned for next time.

But I still love the fabric that I printed, so I decided to turn it into a long skirt and make use of all of those pockets on it.  

I unpicked the inner seams to start off with. 

There's a lot of fabric, so I didn't even have to fill the gaps. Just straighten the inner seams.

 And there we have it, a new skirt. All the pockets and none of the unhappiness.

#lovelypennypatterns

Upcycled denim jacket with rust dyed fabric

This denim started out as any denim jacket does: plain and blue. But though I like blue, I'm not so keen on plain. 

So I started adding eco dyed lace.

And then some eco dyed patches, because these spring prints needed a garment home.

A sleeve unpicked from a rust dyed shirt.

Some grumbling from my machine about sewing through denim!

That scrap of eco dyed lace that I loved, that just needed the right thing to go on.

And there you have it: ready in time for my stall.

 

#lovelypennypatterns