Art and Adaptation Project - Eco dye garments

I decided to submit to a local art project Art and Adaptation. I had the opportunity to submit up to 3 photos of works that could be displayed in light-up art boxes around my town. The theme was adaptation and transformation and how this applies to our local context: so why not enter some transformed garments, since the reuse and recycle movement is so strong here?
My concept was that I would take before and after photos of my dyed garments and I pictured them as mirror images. 
No other available model but myself!

 A pity this one blurred! Oh well, learning experience, and I took other photos.

This shirt.. was not flattering!

I think the ones with me in them are probably more interesting than just the clothes, but I tried some of them too.

 The next stage is seeing how they turn out after the dye... could be anything!

 The flowers are loving the bits of rain we get at the moment 😃

Another day of dyeing. Aaaaaand..... the results!

 Mixed results with the photography.

 And with the success of the dye. I had a couple that I could work with though.

A bit of photoshop and creativity, and this is what I came up with.

I didn't end up submitting the green dress, because I didn't think it was interesting enough. People are much better subjects. 

 I was really happy with this one in the end, though trying to take outdoor photographs in the tropics WHILE WEAR WOOL is crazy!

 But this is probably my favourite, especially the 'after' shot.  

#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

Star Wars Bedsheets refashioned into a dress (and three skirts!)

I'm going through a dress phase again at the moment, and I'm not afraid to wear interesting things to work. So when I found these Star Wars Stormtrooper bedsheets in an op shop I had to make something!

Cue favourite pattern: 

There was plenty of fabric for a full-length dress, so I folded and pinned my pieces. I wanted to get more than one garment out of it, so I didn't necessarily follow the grain of the fabric... but hopefully it won't stretch too much.

I also cheated and combined a couple of pieces- sometimes I'm lazy! It's for me, so it doesn't matter so much.

The other skirts that I cut out:

1) Rockabilly pattern, just needs the waist band on it in this photo:

Finished:

2) Rockabilly pattern for my nerd skirt, in progress:

3) Flared skirt:

Four garments out of two bedsheets is good recycling! 

Keep an eye out for the finished dress!
#lovelypennypatterns

Quick shirt refashion in blue and yellow

I love the colours of this shirt. I bought it to match a particular skirt, so it doesn't go with much else. It also has 3/4 sleeves, not my favourite. So it needed a refashion.

I didn't like the length of the sleeves so I removed part of them.

The shirt was also a big short in front and this was the main reason I didn't wear- don't like flashing my stomach all that much! I thought about adding the leftovers from the sleeves below, but decided not to and just left the refashion at the shorter arms.

Good to have a quick win sometimes!
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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

Orange flower necklace mini project

I need orange accessories for a dinner I'm attending in January, to go with a plain black dress. I don't really have any orange beads because it's not my usual colour. I also didn't want to go out and buy something new. So I decided to make a fabric necklace.
I dug through my fabric stash and found some orange scraps in various colours and patterns.

 I was going to make a large flower. To do it you can create individual petals by sewing them inside out and then turning them the right way.

 I did the same for leaves with scraps of green.

 Wasn't sure what I wanted to put in the middle, but I did find these in a random jar that I unearthed in the middle of a box of fabric!

It looks a bit orchid-shaped here. I wanted more petals than this.

 Almost there. I was thinking about one more petal at this point, and wondering if this brooch would make a good centrepiece?

I could have joined a lot of it on the sewing machine, but it is nice to hand sew sometimes. Very relaxing!

I did whiz the straps through the machine, much easier than trying to hand sew them.

Another scrap of orange to hide the raw edges and my stitching through the middle.

 It doesn't matter so much on the back of course!

 Now to turn the edges under and keep them there until I sew it down!

There was a lot more fiddling...

 And adding... hand sewing the beads on was very relaxing.

The final product, can't wait to see how it looks with my dress 😊

#lovelypennypatterns

Steampunk skirt refashion with eco dyed fabric

Take an op shop skirt that you bought because it had a cool pattern (and was still cotton!):

Add a cotton vest that only took up some of the eco dye:

 And a curved pillow case that you don't have a pillow for but would look great as a ruffle layer:

Layer them over each other, making sure you can see both:

And it's a pretty good start for a steampunk skirt! Final product, almost ready for the stall (unfortunately slightly too small for me!) It didn't sell this time around, but maybe next time.

#lovelypennypatterns