Refashion: Men's Shirt to Shirtdress

Found this XXL Old Navy shirt at the thrift store for $3. I thought the bright coral of the shirt was a little weird for a guy's shirt. And I'm guessing so did the guy who received this as the original Old Navy tags were still attached! Never before wore! Anyways I had been on the lookout for men's shirt that could be easily transformed into a dress. And this was the first I found that had a nice color, was in good condition and was long enough!

I started by removing the sleeves. Then I pinched in the sides for the bodice, but let the skirt flare out beginning at the waist. I wasn't happy with how the dress was fitting so I tried to make a belt out of the remants gleaned from taking the sides in. But there simply wasn't enough fabric for that! I was about to figure out how to harvest a belt from the sleeves, until I remembered I had a bit of fabric left over from shortening the skirt on this refashion.

See this refashion  Here

The two corals matched almost perfectly and now I got to add a little floral punch to this dress. Coming from two lines of packrats has taught me to save your big scraps! They can be useful when you least expect it.

Alas even after trying on the dress with the belt I wasn't happy with the way the dress fit. I examined a shirtdress I already had, and noticed the use of banana darts. So I added two the the front, starting under the bosoms and ending a little below the waist, and two to the back. Then two horizontal darts, on the side of the bosom. Finally it fit the way I wanted it to!

Then it was pocket time. Any shirtdress I own should have pockets. I removed a pocket from the shirt. But this breast pocket wasn't big enough for comfy hand resting. So, using the removed pocket as a template I cut two new ones out that were about 1" wider and 1" taller from one of the removed sleeves. And I still had some of the coral floral fabric. So I trimmed the top 1" of the pockets with it. For figuring out placement I again refered to the Shirtdress I already had.
And finally I finished  off the armholes. For some reason I kept thinking the armholes were going to be terrifyingly difficult. Instead they were actually pretty easy once I figured em out.
Lastly I changed out the boring white buttons for some coral shank buttons. 

Pockets get button love, too!

Refashion: loose shirt to fitted Caribbean tank

Got this shirt at the thrift store for $1.50. For such a great deal I couldn't pass up the funky print and the cotton/rayon mixture

Off come the sleeves!

Changed the buttons to awesome pink flowers!

Took me forever to figure out how to size the top. Each time I tried to tailor it I didn't like how it looked. Finally I got out a shirt I already had that fit me well to use as a pattern and that actually seemed to work.

Ta Da a tank top!

Kid Robot My Way

I know a certain someone who likes Kid Robot stuff, so I decorated one of the blank DIY ones for him. This also explains my lack of posts recently, because I've been working on this but didn't want to spoil the surprise with the in progress pics!

Anyways here's what the little guy looked like before I painted him.

From my art school training I've learned the importance of thumbnails. So here's a bunch that I did to test out ideas and colors, even if I didn't exactly follow my thumbs, but whatevs. My second favorite was the turquoise and gold guy. Almost went with him.... But couldn't find turquoise pom poms. Keep reading the importance of pom poms will be revealed.

In the comp sketches you see the hat that the little guy came with. This little bowler hat just was no where near as cool as a mariachi hat. So I decide to make one. How do to that???? First I needed a hat block (ie head dress form) that I could pin into. So I put plastic over the little guy. And then wrapped duct tape tightly over the plastic. Then I carefully cut it off, removed it from the Munny, and then sealed up the cut I made on the plastic and duct tape thingy. Next I stuffed the plastic duct tape thing, sealed up the bottom and voila! I had a hat block, Munny style!

Next I played around with felt, winging it as I went to make a sombrero. It ain't perfect but I'm no milliner. Anyways how I did it, so that the felt kept its shape was to soak the felt in a mixture of 50% water and 50% water. While the gluey mixture is drying the felt needs to be pinned, or kept in the shape you want it to dry in. (This is a little trick I picked up from Tara Maginnis who is an awesome costume designer and teacher at Diablo Valley College.)

After it was dry I removed the pins and jazzed up the hat. Add some red trim and dangly pom poms (added with hand stitching, ahhhhh the torture whyyyyy did it decided to do this again?) and it looked awesome!


And now onto the actual doll....

Added some varnish that was a little finicky but I fixed it.

And here's the whole shebang. And if he doesn't like it, I'm taking it back.

Refashion: XXL Coral-ness to Cute Sundress

Almost didn't pick up this bright little number, because I usually don't like pink. But as it was only $6 at the thrift store....

So anyways this dress was originally a XXL Xhilaration dress. It had 2 boning channels in the front. But  the boning was already bent. At my lowest rib it pushed out; it had already conformed to a much larger boob shape than mine. So buh-bye boning! The dress had no type of closure because the back was all shirred. And that meant when I took in the sides I didn't have to add a zipper or buttons. Yay! And I noticed when I took the sides in that the skirt had pockets. I LOVE POCKETS. I shortened the skirt and with the remnant made straps. Voila cute sundress.

DIY: A Rectangle into a Swimsuit Cover Up

I was inspired by the DIY swimsuit cover up projects these two lovely bloggers did. http://glitternglue.com/2012/07/17/diy-swimsuit-wrap/  and  http://laviediy.blogspot.com/2012/02/diy-20-minute-beach-cover-up.html .

So I decided to make my own. In essence the project requires a bit over a yard of very drape-able cloth (There is probably a technical term for that). And you attach straps. And you cut some fabric off. Done.   Super easy. 

I'm not going to write a whole new tutorial. But I will sum up what I did. 

So I kinda followed both tutorials. I didn't cut a 'C' into the corners like the lady at La Vie En Rose did. And didn't want to mess with grommets and fragile fabric so I braided the straps like the lady at La Vie En Rose did. Although I didn't knot my ends. Here's what I did: got a 4.5'' strip that was about a yard long (way too long of a measurement 18''-20'' would probably work better). And I cut this into 3 strips lengthwise, BUT I didn't cut all the way down, I left one end with about an inch where the strips were still joined. As for the other end I just sewed it closed when I sewed it on to the rectangle.

Not quite sure how much fabric I used for the big rectangle. Kinda just wrapped it around and cut off the excess. Click on either of the links for actual measurements.  If you find that the back is sagging too low (mid bum level), you have too much fabric. Tighten up the distance between your straps and the back should go up. I did angle the cut on the bottom corners. It looks prettier that way.

Picked up the fabric (soft cotton knit) for $2.11.

Not bad considering the one at Victoria's Secret is the same design and selling for $40. Follow the link, see for yourself. Then go buy fabric and make your own....

http://www.victoriassecret.com/

Refashion: Hoochie Dress to Not-so Hoochie Top

So I bought this dress a while ago. And never wore it. You can see why: it's hoochie! And it's got way too much going on at once: shirring, bows and ruffles.

 Bum ruffles are terrible! And the back bow fell off, right after I put the dress on! Less work for me.

So I decided to make a cut! And removed the bows! Here's all the pieces:

Snip snip snip

Snipped and hemmed it a bit longer than hip level. When I wore my new top I played around with wearing it with a high waisted skirt or hip level skirt. 

Liking my new top!

Now I just gotta figure out what to do with the bottom and the oversized bows.

Organize them Threads (DIY)

I was getting tired of all my spools of thread falling out of my sewing box. And I was getting tired of losing the bobbins that went with said spools. So I wanted a thread organizer.
This one on the interwebs was round $30. And it looks flimsy.

I've also seen ones at Jo-Anns for more. But I wanted something under $10. So I went on over to Michaels and got a finished board measuring 11"x 14"and a bunch of dowels at 3/16". Board was marked down to $6 (with a coupon!) and I ended up getting 6 dowels at 49 cents a pop. The rest was all elbow grease.

Supplies: wooden base, dowels, a drill & a saw

Drill, Baby Drill!

Drilled, Baby Drilled!

I spaced out the holes to be anywhere from 1'' to 1.75" from each other. And cut/sawed my dowels down to 2.5" to 3.5". Keep in mind about half an inch of the dowel will go into the wood base. Because I used a 3/16" drill bit with 3/16" dowels the dowels are pretty securely wedged into their holes. Some required a little tapping to get them down to the bottom of the hole. When I measured the length the dowels would have to be I took into consideration that I wanted my bobbins to rest on top of my spools, to keep them organized. I managed to get 55 pegs.

See, bobbins & threads together

All DIY projects have to pass the Dog Inspection

Oops it's all filled up already! All 55 of 'em!

So there you have it a thread organizer for under $10.