Shorts to Skirt Refashion with a bush chook

A friend donated me this pair of shorts to do as I liked with them.

 They had an initial printing session, but I felt that they were missing something...

 So I decided to turn them into a skirt. I cut the leg seams open, turned them inside-out and sewed straight lines down the front and back.

 It made them into a nice little skirt.

#lovelypennypatterns

Gone Batty at the Show Dress

I spend some time at our local show each year, but instead of buying a show bag I get.... fabric! Of course 😆 
This is from a couple of years ago now, but I finally made it up.

Bring on my favourite dress pattern and it was just a matter of cutting everything out (and hoping that I had enough fabric). 

I wanted to try a different neckline, too, maybe an asymmetrical one to match the quirky pattern?

Isn't it a great pattern? I overlaid some of the pieces to make the skirt slimmer and also to preserve some of the bats whole. I'm still playing with this pattern to make it fit me.

Then I made the mistake of putting the project aside after I cut it out, caught up in something else. I pulled the pieces out a couple of months later, sewed it all together... and when I tried to put it on, I found that it was waaaaay too small.

Puzzled, I dutifully cut out two new pieces for the back and sewed the zip in without looking at it properly. The result was this:

Sure, it fit better, but that much bra shouldn't have been flashing. Grumpy, I set it down and decided to tidy my work space... in which time I found the two missing pieces that I had cut out!

Bah! Ah well, I'll use those pieces in some other dress I suppose! A bit of tweaking and the dress fit well. I played with some pieces for the back and landed on this:

I've seen a lot of cute patterns recently and wanted to cut a bat-shaped pocket out, too. 

I found some red cotton to use as a backing, sewed around the edges and turned it through. 

It worked out pretty well!

 All in all, the disaster turned into a pretty groovy dress.

It's one of my favourite outfits now. I plan to wear it later this month to give a presentation at a conference in Sydney - show off a little bit of the Territory. 

#lovelypennypatterns

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

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

Steampunk Botanist Costume / Cosplay

Last year we attended a Steampunk Murder Mystery night and it was great fun, so when another one came up this year we jumped to get tickets.
Unfortunately I had re-purposed my Steampunk Seamstress dress for my Ursula costume, so I had to think of something new. What a shame! 😆
Luckily I had picked this cotton dress up at an op shop, because as soon as I saw it I knew that it had a future in Steampunk.

But what kind of costume did I want? I have this metal ornament and it made me think of the Tinman from the Wizard of Oz:

Or the garment could be a coat over another dress?

But I didn't love either of them. 

Steampunk biologist? 

Steampunk Marine Biologist - I have beaded fish, an octopus necklace? 

That idea nearly made it up, but then I had a sudden thought when I saw the dried plants outside our house: botanist! 

I gathered everything that I could possibly use at home, as I was determined not to buy anything for this costume. And it turned out that I have a lot of flowers, brooches, pins, scraps...

Accessories

I did end up buying one thing: a hat that I could decorate. I could have used one of my own, but didn't want to permanently alter them. Off to the op shop!

You have no idea how tempting this one was... I should have bought it anyway. 

The next one was also tempting, but not quite the Steampunk I was looking for.

 And then I found it! Plain, just ready for things to be added to it.

I saw the hat as an eclectic collection, of things haphazardly stuck on throughout interesting travels. 

After burning my fingers with the hot glue gun, I was really happy with how my hat looked. The white flower at the back and the green beading I wore in my hair for my wedding day! 

I decided to wear my pearl jewellery, but also craft some small bottles that I could pin/hang from the dress that I could put live plants in on the day.

Perhaps... I can be a little bit much 😉

Outfit 

Onto the outfit. I decided to use the grey dress as a coat, but put it over my Poison Ivy top:

And the underskirt from the Dragon Age Inquisition cosplay:

Combines to this, which I wore to the shopping centre afterwards... one lady said she loved my dress: 

From there it was a matter of adding layers of detail to the grey coat, and that was an awful lot of fun!

 Some eco-dyed fabric on the back, as well as the fabric necklace I made myself last year.

 More flowers and brooches keep coming out of boxes and places and being added to the outfit. IT weighs a bit!

And the flower from my friend's wedding to finish off one shoulder.

Final outfit

All dressed up and ready to solve a murder! 

#lovelypennypatterns