DIY Shirt Copycat

Happy Sunday friends :)

Unfortunately, my Christmas plans for the weekend fell through when Mother Nature decided to drop an ice storm on the in-laws. The roads were a complete mess and they lost power for more than 24 hours. In result, we did not go home and were not able to have the family Christmas this weekend. Luckily, we are all getting together on Wednesday (Christmas day) and spending time together. I'm certainly glad we didn't skip it, and even more glad that the ice storm is over and the power to my in-laws is restored.

Meanwhile in my house, I am having the worst luck with everything electronic. I finally got my sewing machine cleaned up and greased so it is no longer making any clunking noises. So, I prepared for today's project and got my thrift store garments all set. I turned on my camera... and nothing. It turned on, but as soon as I pushed the button to take a picture, it turned off. Even with a change of batteries, nothing was working. Then when I sat down to write this very blog, my computeres "r" key decided to stop working. When you're doing a post aboutt a "shirt" it happens to be a pretty necessary letter and keeps it from being comparable to poo. Luckily, I improvised with a wireless keyboard and my iPad. If I lose my iPad though - I'm giving up forever.

So, since my camera wasn't working properly, I had one choice - video. So here you are - a video of me walking you through creating a shirt from scratch. And it actually worked this time, so that's always a bonus.

Enjoy :)

As always, feel free to comment below and e-mails are always welcome at thriftysew@gmail.com.

Happy Holidays, and may all your electronics work better than mine.

Fishy Fishy

It's Sunday!

I've had quite the pleasant weekend, actually. As you may or may not have heard, the Northeast US got slammed with quite a bit of snow, and we certainly were not missed. Luckily, it was the weekend so we didn't have to go anywhere. We took the opportunity to hang around the house and get some relaxing in before the holiday rush. It wasn't all too bad - we snowblowed the driveway twice and all together got about a foot of snow. I've had worse.

Because of our nice, quiet weekend, I had plenty of time to work on projects. I went thrift shopping and also got my project done. That's where the stress-free weekend ended.

I started with this fishy masterpiece:

 It was a size 3X, and it may or may not have supposed to have been a long shirt. I'm still out on that one. I was inspired to buy this from all the popular printed sweatshirts/sweaters being sold lately. I know it's a fad, so I don't want to spend money on it, but I enjoy the look so this $3 dollar sensation was calling my name. Bonus: it was made of a black sweatshirt material.

First thing I did on this one was cut off the bottom panel, right under the sewn-in pockets.

At first, I thought the pockets were going to be a mess, since they were sewn in, but the large size of the dress made it simple to just pin up the middle, right inside the ends of the pockets, and cut them out altogether while bringing in the dress as well. And that's how I rock the two-for-one deal while sewing.

I used my ruler as a guide for my copious amount of pins, and followed it right up from bottom to top and also took a few inches off of the sleeves as well so they weren't quite as baggy.

 

That was as simple as that. I now had myself a patterned sweater to wear that I could fall into the trend AND be fiscally responsible. (I don't get to say that very often, so you just go ahead and read that last sentence over again for good measure. Go ahead - I'll wait.)

 

 

And now, for my no-snow friends: here's a bit of snowy glory for you. The snow covered trees are, and always will be, my favorite sight of all.

Don't tell me that doesn't blow your mind.

 

No crockpot meal this weekend folks. My apologies - I've started in on the Christmas cookie baking, so I had to have my counters clear.

 

However, you may have caught up on the fact that I said after my project was finished the stressful weekend ended. That is because my sewing machine is up to it's horrible game of "I don't want to work". It explodes thread. And, although funny at first, it's not becoming a fun game. It may become out of commission for a bit while I get it cleaned and tuned up. Stay tuned.

 

Dancin' Fail

Last week, I posted a video of my 4 year old self dancing to "All Dressed Up in Grown Up Clothes" like a champ.

Let me tell you this now - it wasn't always this way. I certainly messed up. Below is a video of myself at age 11 or 12. To this day, I cringe when I hear any of these songs. I've done many a dances, and this one is still, by far, the most embarrassing in my mind.

To preface, this was a medley song that lasted 7 excruciating long minutes.

Apologies for the crappy quality- as this was a time long before iPad's and iPhones, I had to video tape this from the TV while playing the VHS it was taped on.

Anyway, getting back to it - why on earth would I post this, showing possibly the worst recital I've ever done?

Because I finished it.

Perseverance. It's a difficult thing sometimes. As you can tell from my random comments, my face got pissier and pissier to the point where you know that I just wanted to give up and walk off stage. Alas, I did not. I kept on going, from song to endless song, and managed to keep up with the other dancers while not completely breaking down.

I get e-mails from ladies who want to start refashioning but don't want to start for fear that they will mess up or turn out something that they are not proud of. Most of all my responses are: just go for it. Hang in there and go for it. The only way that you are going to know is if you try and just go for it. You may look like a fool, you may not do something you're proud of, but finishing will be a success in itself.

And, as you may have heard from my other comments in the video - I rocked it out the second night. I went right back out there on Saturday, donned in my mom-shorts and white t-shirt with lipstick stains, and rocked it.

Moral of the story: it takes practice. At this point in my dancing career I had been dancing for at least 8 years, but I still messed up. Just because I was experienced, does not mean that I was perfect.

And that, my friends, is why I post my refashions that don't work out so well right along with the (good?) ones that worked out. It's not an easy thing to do, taking god-awful garments and making them look okay, and it won't always work out the way it will in my mind - and certainly hasn't.

But - I will always get back out there (rather, in there - as in, my craft room) and go at it again. I encourage all of you that e-mail *and have the same thoughts* to do the same, whether your refashion turns out to be a masterpiece or a master fail.

My apologies for the touchy-feely-ness of this, but I believe that every now and then everyone needs a pick up or two.

Dancin' Fool

This is a doozy of a post, let me tell you. This took me a computer, an iPad, an iPhone and a camera to complete and I'm still not entirely sure if I've structured it the way I wanted to. You're welcome.

So I was shopping at the Salvation Army not too long ago, and I came upon a dress that made me completely and utterly miss my childhood. First, watch this video. (Yes, it's 2 minutes long, and yes, it has the commentary of my family and I because I couldn't get it in iMovie to edit it. Fail. I get that.)

This was one of my dance recitals when I was 4 years old. I can still sing every word, and still know most of the steps in the correct order. I was "All Dressed Up in Grown-Up Clothes" and got to don my mother's dress and jewelry for this recital. I danced from ages 3 until 19/20 (college) and miss every second of it.

So, imagine my surprise when I came upon this gorgeousness in the thrift store:

I put the old school filter on this one to channel my 4 year old self. Note - don't pay any attention to the striped tank top underneath. This dress is super see through.

This dress was the same color and had the same feel as mom's dress that I used for the dance above. It wasn't exact, but it was enough for me to spend a bit more than usual on it - 4 dollars! First thing was first - remove all unnecessary shoulder pads as well as the weird flap on the chest (what is that, anyway?)

Next, I had to do something with the skirt. It was super long and as super see-through as the top, so it was quite the challenge to figure out what to do with it. Finally, I decided on a bubble skirt (channeling the tutu here). To do this bubble skirt, I folded the bottom hem up inside the dress and sewed it down on the elastic. This poof'd it out enough to be bubbly, but not overly annoying.

I admit, it does not look pretty, but this is the inside. On the outside, it looks like a regular ol' cinched waist. Win-win!

Next, I removed the sleeves. I did this for 2 reasons: 1) sleeveless is way more dancer-like and 2) they were cutting off my circulation. I don't have rather large forearms, so I thought, but these things cinched right onto them like I was hulking it up. Not pretty, nor comfortable. This is where I messed up, because I cut off the first sleeve the wrong way, so the cut was on the right side of the fabric. This made it necessary for me to hem the sleeve (when done right, this shouldn't be needed, for short-term use). Then I couldn't really go and do the other arm correctly, so I intentionally cut it wrong again and did the same type of hem on the other side. It was quite the time waster, but at least both arms look equally messed up. Score?

Paired with my leggings and a black tank top, I had a dancers dress that my 3 year old dancer self would have been super jealous of (and also my 4 year old to 19 year old dancer self - these were a hot commodity!)

Bring on the let warmers and the tap shoes!

Hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving, and that you didn't get trampled on Black Friday if you were ballsy enough to go out.

And, if you find yourself celebrating Christmas (as we do) - do you have your tree up yet? We put ours up today and I couldn't be more in love with it.

I am super excited for the holiday season - I am quite the little child at this time of year, so it's only appropriate I share a bit of my childhood with ya'll today.

 

For today's crock pot meal: Southwest Chicken

- one bag frozen corn

- 2 chicken breasts (frozen is fine, I did it and I'm not dead) skinless, boneless and all that jazz

- 1 can black beans (drained and rinsed. if you don't it's gross)

- 18oz salsa (I used mild, but medium may give a bit more pop)

*Note* I ended up using a half bag of frozen peas, and a can of kernel corn because I was lacking the frozen corn aspect. It worked fine.

Throw the chicken, corn, black beans and salsa in the crock pot. I then put it on low for 4 hours. Once it was done, I shredded the chicken and stirred up the pot. I served it over jasmine rice with a bit of shredded Mexican cheese on top, but it is also quite tasty over tortilla chips with cheese and sour cream. Do your thing - it's kind of hard to screw up.

I even got the "pretty delicious" comment from my husband so, there's that. (That comment doesn't happen. Ever.)

So tasty, in fact, I didn't take any pictures. Sorry :*(