Refashion – women’s halter top to toddler tunic

Friends of ours recently celebrated their daughter’s first birthday. These particular friends love op shops and are into refashioning so I thought I would do one for the birthday. They are NOT into pink. Considering that 99% of the clothing for girls in stores is a variant on that particular colour I took that as confirmation that I had had a stroke of genius and set to work. I found a ladies halter neck in a jersey fabric that I thought was nice. Jersey is great for toddlers who tend to fall, crawl, scrape and so on, so something stretchy with give is better in my mind than something that will tear.

It had a nice design on the bottom which I loved so I made it into a tunic using the standard pillowcase dress idea.

I cut of the edges and used them as the ties at the top. I love it. It can be worn with a turtleneck skivvy underneath and jeans or leggings in winter and with shorts in summer. I hope she gets a lot of wear out of it.

Happy Birthday C.

 

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Week 4 June Challenge: Final

It’s the final week of my June Challenge and I wanted to make something useful and push myself so I made it up as I went. I found it time consuming and my brain hurts, but even though it isn’t perfect I am proud of the result.

I made a stable table for my son to use in the car on trips and us to hijack and use for tv dinners at home too!

I found this bug table in a thrift shop. It cost $3 and it’s fine. It was a bit worn looking, but I had been looking for a table for a while so I grabbed it as this one comes off.

I wanted to use the top and make another bottom with a pocket for books and side bits to store pencils etc. for my son to use in the car.

I bought some cotton drill (heavy duty fabric) for the main parts and some decorative fabric for the pockets. I also wanted to be able to fill it with beanbag beans but also wash it so I made an empty zippered compartment and an extra bag from raincoat material that I filled with beans.

I used normal priced fabric because I didn’t have time this week to find exactly what I wanted in a thrift shop, but it could be made cheaply by taking time and doing so. I used hair ties to join to the table and obviously zips (you can also get them at thrift shops, but I wanted green and red like traffic lights so my 2yr old would know which one to open for paper and which not to open as it contained the bag of beans)

It took me 2 days (albeit interrupted by children and life in general) to conceptualize it and make it. I made it up as I went, but my goal was to get it done on time and it is so I am happy!

Here is the result

I am…finished my June Challenge.

In July I will be doing a daily photo challenge. The first in my colour series, I will be including red in all of my July photos.

June Challenge, Week 2&3 Double Challenge Finished!

For June I have been buying 2 items from a thrift shop and joining them together to make something else.

Week 1 I made boys linen pants from 2 women’s skirts. Then I hit a slight hurdle in week 2 and didn’t have time to sew! So, I went double or nothing. Week 3 joined together with Week 2.

I had a women’s maxi dress that cost $1, that I joined first with a white and purple striped shirt that also cost $1, then with a black and white striped girls top, cost 75c, and made an extra piece with the left over fabric.

So the total cost for these three is $2.75. Can’t really go wrong with that!

This is the result from the dress and shirt. I made a girl’s skirt for a 2-4yr old. I liked the fabrics together. I sewed up the front, cut off the bottom, added pockets and a waist band. I don’t have a photo of it on because I don’t have a girl!

I liked the girls top from the second week challenge so I decided to just add a bit of interest. I added Ruffles to the sleeves in the maxi dress fabric and to the pocket.

Finally with the left overs (the bottom of the dress was left!) I made a simple knee length skirt for myself. It’s a light fabric so it will be great for summer. Excuse the poor photo, the light in the room was bad, but I couldn’t miss another deadline!!

Next week I will try something a bit out of the square…if I get it done!

June Challenge – Week 2. Um… it’s coming…

I have had no time to sew this week. I have the pieces of this weeks challenge cut and ready to go, along with next weeks challenge and an extra as I have decided to use one of the clothing items in several ways with other items. This week I used this collared shirt and maxi dress. Each cost $1. My next weeks challenge was to use the same maxi dress and a childrens t-shirt that cost 75c. I will be making an item of kids clothing from each and an extra something for me from the maxi dress left overs. So that will be 3 clothing items for $2.75.

However, as I have had no time this week, I will be revealing them all as a double challenge week next Friday. I had better get sewing.

I am…busy.

June Challenge Week 1, Part 2 – The Result!

Here is a recap. My challenge for June is to take 1 or 2 items from a thrift shop and make them into something else. Here are the 2 things I used this week.

Item 1 – a brown linen skirt with crochet detail around the bottom. (a truly hideous garment made worse by overstretching, personal taste of course)
Cost $1

Item 2 – a brown cotton skirt with a print that reminds me of dandelions and lovely black pen marks scribbled across the front.
Cost $1

Ta-da!

My son E modeling the result! Brown linen toddler pants with dandelion pockets.

Although that linen skirt was truly awful, I LOVE linen. I really LOVE linen pants for $1.

And I especially love linen pants with interesting and USEFUL pockets. A boy has to have a place to keep his treasures you know?..rocks, sticks, biscuits etc

My husband was a bit horrified when I showed him the skirts initially and said that E would be having pants made out of flowers, but he was fine with the result. I wanted to start with pants because I was a bit nervous at refashioning, having never done it before and I had made pants using this pattern before…just not quite this way.

I love using patterns that are traditionally considered to be feminine with a twist (like the silhouette dandelion print) on men or boys. I think if they are worn the right way they emphasise the masculinity (by contrast I suppose). These pants will be great in spring with a loose white shirt and sandals. They could equally be worn by a girl, but when I saw the skirt immediately thought of boys clothing.

I used my favourite pants pattern from here (the greatest shape I have found ANYWHERE!) combining the basic pants with the pocket pants.

I made the pants a bit bigger than the pattern to suit the loose nature of linen pants and because it made it possible to adapt the pattern pieces to fit the side seams of the skirt. Also, because I used the side seams of the linen skirt that already existed, I had to unpick the sides to insert the pockets and resew.

The bottom hem has been left fairly long underneath to allow for the rapid growth of a 2 year old boy! Folded and ready for Spring.

Although they aren’t perfect, I am happy with my first ever attempt at refashioning something into something else.

I am… satisfied.

Sewing, sewing

Spent the night sewing, on schedule for Fridays result! Finishing off tomorrow hopefully. I think I will be happy with it when it’s done. Not bad for my first ever anyway!

June Challenge Week 1, part 1

I told you that my challenge for June would be to take 1 or 2 items from a thrift shop and make them into something else. Here are the 2 things I will be using this week.

Item 1 – a brown linen skirt with crochet detail around the bottom.
Cost $1

Item 2 – a brown cotton skirt with a print that reminds me of dandelions and lovely black pen marks scribbled across the front.
Cost $1

I have just the thing in mind. I will post the result Friday.

Item 1

Item 2