A Little Goes a Long Way

Happy Sunday! It's back to football season, so I'm enjoying my new Sunday schedule of sewing and writing up my blog while watching football and noshing on food that's not good for me. I shouldn't make it a habit, but... I'd like to :)

A chill is in the air and summer is certainly winding down. According to the weatherman this Tuesday and Wednesday are going to be in the high 80's so since Mother Nature decided to go out with a summery bang, I figured it wasn't so bad to do just one more summer dress.

I started out with this:

This certainly wasn't the worst project I've picked up, and as I'm sure you can tell from my title that I really didn't do all that much for a nice update. I like that I don't always have to do a drastic overhaul to make things new and wearable again. I like when I can just do a few tweaks to make it my own and still keep the idea of the original designer. It makes me feel like they wouldn't be horribly mad at me for screwing up their design too badly.

There was certainly something that had to go, and it was this collar.

I'm a huge fan of lace, which is what drew me to this project in the first place. However, extraneous, itchy, tall lace around my neck that creates a mock-turtleneck is not in the cards for me... ever.

Seam ripping out the collar panel was a quick and easy job.

Next, I brought my attention to the lace details on the chest. As mentioned, I'm a fan of lace. I'm also a fan of ruffles (in small amounts). Lace ruffles? That's just too much. Luckily, the two lace ruffles that went down either side of the chest was added on as an afterthought by the designer, and were easily removed without messing up the rest of the lace on the bodice.

All in all, this was all that was removed.

Then I turned my attention onto the skirt. My first thought was to make it a high-low hem, so I put the two side seams together and put down my ruler to see how drastic of an angle I wanted.

Obviously, my ruler is more than lacking for this task.

Besides having a pretty useless ruler, I was very unsure about this high-low. I love the trend and think it looks good.... on other people. On me? I'm too big of a wuss to find out. Plus I'm a sucker for a circle skirt and this was a perfect one.

So I just decided to bring up the hem an inch or so because it hit me in a weird spot right below my knee. As I plan on wearing this dress to work, I didn't want to go to short with it, but still wanted to keep it flattering.

 

This is where I cheated just a little big time. The original hem was just about one inch, so I used it as my guide to roll it up and pin it down. This way, no measuring was needed and the bottom hem looked nice and neat. All it needs after I wash it is a nice ironing to make sure it stays put.

All in all, not much was done to this dress but I think the small tweaks was a vast improvement on the overall look. This just goes to show that you don't have to be a master of sewing (or really, know anything about it) to make a dress your own and tweak it to be flattering for you. Just a cut here, rip there, and a few pin stabs (it happens!) and you've got yourself a classy dress that you can now say " Thanks! I made it" (and whisper "sort of") when people say "Hey I love that dress!"

 

Here's a close up of the nice, clean lace-turtleneck-free neckline.

Note to self: Let's look more presentable in the next project, k?

As always, comments are welcome and e-mails to thriftysew@gmail.com always make me smile. Enjoy your football, or whatever else you choose to do on this gorgeous Sunday!





Thrifty T's

Happy Labor Day Weekend :) This weekend is a holiday in the US and so we have a nice long weekend to celebrate our labors -- by doing nothing. I enjoy it :)

It's also a big weekend in Syracuse, where I live. Around these parts, Syracuse University sports reign and yesterday was the season opener of football. Back in the day, we (as in Syracuse University) were "da bomb" at football - football legends such as Jim Brown and Ernie Davis took over the field. Now... well, not so much. Things aren't going well for Syracuse University, but that doesn't stop my husband, an alumni, and me from being orange-blooded fans. So, in Syracuse Orange spirit, I wanted to create a dress using the SU colors while rooting on my team.

Who would have thought finding an orange dress at the thrift store was so hard? But I didn't let it get me down - this is what I chose.

That's right - two t-shirts! I must be out of my mind, right? Well... only a  little. These were a steal though. Both were white tags, which conveniently were 50% off the day I bought them, so I got the blue Aruba shirt for $1 and the orange shirt for $1.50. A $2.50 dress was certainly looking good for my budget!

The first thing I did was cut off the top of the blue shirt where the Aruba picture was.

Next, I took the remaining tube of blue fabric and matched it up to the bottom of the orange shirt and cut it roughly the same size. I made sure to cut on the seam so when I sewed it back up the seams would all match. I also learned my lesson and left a seam allowance so I didn't end up making it too small when it was ultimately sewn up.

Then it was to the sewing machine to sew up the cut and make it back into my tube. I did mess up a bit here. I used a short straight stitch that bunched the fabric up like crazy. I didn't rip it out because I had places to be, people to see. I struck it lucky because it actually worked out to be unnoticeable. In any other case, though, I would have ripped it all out and re-sewn it with a longer zig-zag stitch.

After this, it was just a matter of putting the blue tube around the bottom of the shirt, inside out and upside down (with the orange shirt right side out) and sewed around the bottom. I made sure this time to use long zig-zag stitches, then went around a second time with short zig-zag stitches. This kept it from bunching but it was stretchy enough that I wouldn't blow our the seams when I put on the dress. when the bottom was all sewn, I just pulled the tube down at that point and I had my SU themed dress!

Let me tell you - this is possibly the most comfortable dress I have ever worn; probably because it was made from two super comfy cotton t-shirts. It was also a hem-free project, as the bottom of the blue shirt is the bottom of the dress. I highly recommend making a t-shirt dress. I also made sure to make it a bit longer, so when I get all jumpy and nuts while cheering on my team I don't get all R-rated in the crowd too.

 

However, when the game is over and we are hopefully celebrating a win, I can jack it up for a night on the town celebrating.

As always, feel free to comment below or shoot me an e-mail at thriftysew@gmail.com :)

 

Enjoy your holiday (and your football!)

Dog Days of Diapers

Happy 52nd post!

Today's before picture is a bit different from the norm...

This adorable little man is Brody. Brody and my buddy spent the weekend at the house and we all had a blast. As you can see though - Brody gets excited and has a bit of a bladder issue that necessitates a diaper. This particular type is a Huggies Swimmer. Growing up in a day care with a pool, I can tell you these things suck up anything and everything so they worked pretty well as a doggie diaper. However, his owner wasn't all that proud to bring Brody around in public with this particular fashion, so he came to me with a problem.

 

Problem: Bought doggie diapers at a pet store - not going to call out names or anything but they consider themselves smart about pets - and was unhappy with both the price (expensive) and the quality (fell apart in the dryer). As he's read my blog a few times and considered me someone of the crafty type (blushing), he asked for my assistance and I was certainly happy to help. So I got my supplies together and went for a test run before I go ahead and begin my Dog Days of Diapers business. *Note: don't get excited, I'm not selling these (unless you want to pay me in old dresses that I can redo. I'll take those) nor am I starting a business.*

 

First thing was first: fabric. I pawed through all my fabric that I bought off Craigslist. I was aiming for two things: something durable for the outside, and something soft for the inside. And not pink - his owner ain't raisin' no girl. I found two fantastic fabrics: a soft denim and a manly flannel piece. Luckily, I had a yard of each so I can make plenty of these.

 

I cut out a piece of each fabric and laid them on top of each other with right sides together, as such.

I then sewed up the sides. This was my first mistake, because my intention was to sew it like a pillow cover: sew up three sides, turn it inside out and then sew up the last side. Yeah, that didn't happen. Apparently I got on a role and was jamming out to my music that I didn't pay the slightest attention to my sewing up all four sides. The trusty seam ripper came out, I undid one of the sides and pulled the whole thing right side out. This was my second mistake. I realized I planned on putting binding around all the sides so having raw seams was not a big deal and sewing it inside out in the first place was a waste of time and just added bulk. Lesson learned.

Next I added elastic to the diaper, as it needed to hug him around the hips to stay put. I took 1/4" elastic, stretched it out, sewed down each end and then sewed it all down while having it stretched. This ensured it would scrunch all up when I stopped stretching it.

Next, I got out the single fold bias tape that I had never used, nor had any idea on how to go about sewing it. After a quick 10 minute YouTube search, I got my confidence and sewed it on there like a pro. If a pro messes up a lot.

Truth be told, this was a rather simple project. I learned quite a few new techniques and honed my elastic stitching skills, so I was pretty happy. Along with the first lesson learned with the seams, I also learned that for this project it would probably be a better idea to sew the elastic to the bias tape, and then sew the bias tape to the diaper. Putting it on the fabric was fine, but as soon as I attached the bias tape the elastic didn't scrunch up as much and I was worried it wouldn't hug him as it should.

Finished product: side view

Finished product: front view

 

The original diaper that I was working from had Velcro on the ends. This was where most of that quality issue stemmed. The Velcro came apart in the dryer and it was also not sticky after a few washes. So, along with it being a shy too short, Brody's owner was putting safety pins on the diaper to hold it together. Let's be honest: they call them safety pins but your fingers are never actually safe.

Once my model arrived, I sized him up and attached some snaps to the ends. This was my final lesson. I made the mistake of assuming attaching snaps was easy - line 'em up, hammer it down, call it a day. Yeah... no. I got too excited with the hammer for 3 of these things and ended up messing up the snap that it wouldn't close. Eventually, I got some snaps on there that were effective enough to see how the diaper would work. Next time, I'm going to try two different snaps - one set with heavy duty snaps that you hammer in, and the other with a set of snaps that you hand sew in. (Suggestions are welcome)

All in all, I think owner and dog were happy and comfortable, respectively. I was in luck because the diaper stayed in place and served its purpose. I'll be making many, many more of these so if any of them are groundbreaking, I'll be sure to post it.

All I have to say is: now who's smart for pets?! *Evil laugh*. Now get ready for the "awww!" inspiring picture:

Beach Baby

This week I was feeling a bit like I needed a vacation. My husband and I have decided to take a few days off of work just to do our own thing. I plan to spend my "mental health" days working on my tan and finally getting my hair cut. With vacation on the brain, I decided to remake a popular beach cover up that's been hanging around Pintrest - see this. The problem? That wrap costs 39.50. On sale. Hell with that! I bought this skirt for $1.50.

Alright yeah, I did a ghetto kind of picture. I risked my life for this, guys - I stood on a chair because I couldn't find a place to put my camera to get a better shot. Basically, it's a wrap skirt a la:

I had no idea what to do with this when I bought it. It's been sitting on my refashion rack for a good 6 or 7 months. Until I saw this idea and knew I had a gem.

First thing I did was cut off the ties for the wrap dress, like this.

Next, I took the corners and folded them down a bit. This is the point where I should of ironed but... "ain't nobody got time for that".

I pinned down the corners on either side and pinned about 1 inch in and sewed them down. This created my casing that I could use a safety pin to thread the ties that I had cut off through the casings on either side.

After the ties were threaded through the casings, it was just a matter of sewing the ends together to create the loops, and then rotating it so the seam was on the inside of the casing.

And just like that, I had myself a beach wrap for a buck fifty. Boom.

I do admit, with a better fabric it would drape a bit better and have a bit more "give" than the skirt, but it turned out to be a bit more modest than the Victoria Secret one (which, all in all, is not that hard to do.)

 

And the best part? I can class it up. Scenario: I'm at the beach, got me my cover up on and all of the sudden my husband offers to take me out for a nice dinner. I certainly don't say no to a nice dinner, so what do I do to make myself presentable? Slap a belt on it.

As always - comment away or throw an e-mail to thriftysew@gmail.com. Until next week!

 

Amateur Hour at the Sewing Machine

Happy Sunday Funday, folks :)

I worked on this project all afternoon for you guys. I've been getting a lot of questions of "is this normal?" and "does this happen to you?". I'm no professional, guys, and yes - it is safe to say that if it's happened to you, it's happened to me. So I put together a little video of things that I've not only said myself, but things that I'm sure you guys say as well. But ya know what? It's totally normal, and completely a part of the joy of sewing. I'm not afraid to make fun of myself because, when it is all said and done, the end result is usually  not that bad.

Announcing Announcements

Hey all! Got a bit of news to share - not sure if it's good or bad. That's for you to decide. Unfortunately I feel like I"e been selling you guys short on Thursdays. Lately I've been late, posting half-assed projects, yadda yadda yadda. I feel like posts have been full of excuses.

So, I'm changing my regular posting day from Thursday to Sundays - Sunday's Fun Day's, if you will. This will ensure that I don't rush the projects after I get home from work at 7 or 8 at night - and, you know, get dinner and sleep. It also helps that that'll give me Saturday to shop for refashions if I'm running low... which is currently the case.

So I will see ya'll on Sunday with my next refashion!!

Thrifting "Too Small"

It seems the theme of these last few weeks has been "what the hell?" I've had quite the streak of bad luck. It started with a bad massage (I know, I didn't think there was such a thing either), continued with a pretty extreme crisis at work, went on for a memorial for a passed friend, and ended with my cat falling out the bathroom window and running away.

Luckily, things are tending to get better. My back is swinging towards better, the crisis is unresolved but I haven't heard anything too bad come from it, the memorial was nice and I saw some old friends, and the cat was found after a few 20 minutes outdoors. Just goes to show - life throws some dumbass lemons, but you can at least turn them into something that will pass for lemonade. That's how it goes, right?

I also had quite the struggle with projects. I went to Salvation Army and, more bad luck, ended up picking up everything that was too small for me. It got me down, that's for sure. It took a very frank husband of mine to say "you make stuff. make this work". He doesn't take my excuses and - never tell him - I like that he doesn't.

So, the more I thought about it, the more excited I was about working on these projects. It's a pretty common problem, I think, to find items at a thrift store that you think will fit, but when you get it home and wash it... it doesn't. So, I thought I would show you a few ways to make this problem into a wearable solution.

I started out with this:

I am pretty long-waisted, so this jumper wasn't even CLOSE to fitting me lengthwise. You also don't see the back, but the back zipper was completely open because there was not a chance in hell this was going to fit around my chest.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the process. I was taking them on my phone and, true to luck, have unfortunately lost all of the pictures I've taken today. So I'm going to try to use my words like a big girl.

First thing I did was cut up the leg seams to open up the jumper. I definitely didn't need to keep this pants or shorts, especially since its waist was way too short for mine.

Next - and I really didn't want to do this - I cut off the arms. I know, I know. But in all honesty, those little dainty armholes were certainly not fitting around my arms, so I needed all the give I could get. This helped the bodice fit perfectly, except the zipper didn't quite want to go all the way up. In fact, it started sweating only a few inches up in its travels. This wasn't going to quite work.

So I just took the zipper out. This left the back completely open and flapping in the breeze. I guess it's better to go bigger than smaller, right? I decided to use a scrap of lace that I had leftover and line the back hole with it. This left the two back flaps with something to latch on to, as well as a modesty panel so I didn't have to go bra-less. Win.

Next, I cut the legs off at the same length as the crotch and hemmed it up. In all truth - I was pretty surprised at the result. I did no measuring, I literally tore things apart in this dress, and I very haphazardly sewed everything because my back is bothering me too much to sit in front of a sewing machine for hours. This project took me about an hour overall, and that includes the time I spent drinking wine. Because, yes, wine is needed after weeks like this.

So? How did it come out? Check it for yourself:

I love that the neckline is the spotlight of the dress now, as opposed to the yards and yards of fabric all over.
Here's the back:

And, because I wasn't lying about the wine, and because I think this is a perfect weekend bbq day-drinking dress...

Hope you all have a fantastic week - get a glass of wine with me!

As You May Have Noticed...

... there was no post yesterday.

My bad.

There was no post because the best sewing I've done all week (or the closest to) was putting a button onto my  husbands pants. Whoop-de-freakin'-do. You would think that since it's been so hot (pushing 105 today) that I would relish the fact of going into my basement craft room and getting lost for a while. Not so much.

In actuality, my stupid ass thought it necessary to have some "me" time this week that did not include crafts, but instead, running. I ran another 5k on the treadmill the other day and plan to do it again today. Beyond that, it's the boring stuff: work, work work and - Surprise! - work.

I will have a project for you all next week, I promise. And, because I've been a failed blogger this week, I'm hoping to even sneak in an extra post/project this week.

Stick with me - stay tuned, and most importantly...

Stay cool.

Flower Frenzy

Happy Thriftysew Thursday! (How have I not thought of that sooner?)

Here's the gorgeousness that I started with this week:

Obviously it's the most flattering dress anyone could own! (Sarcasm.) This has actually been sitting in the craft room for a pretty long time. I just had no idea what to do with it. Finally, I got it out this week and just played around with it in all different ways to see what might work. I liked the fabric and print, but I wasn't too fond of the neckline as well as the obvious sizing issues. My first thought was just to cinch it in, a la this:

I did like the cinched look and it seemed a bit kimono inspiration-esque, but I had no idea what to do with the neckline in this case. So I continued to fool around with it and finally decided on what to do.

I unzipped the back zipper, then jacked the whole thing down. This made the V-neck in the front into a nice sweetheart neckline, and the cinched "waist"(that ended up mid-breast in the before) at the actual waist. I liked it, so I rolled with it.

 

First thing to get chopped was the zipper.

Then, I kept the dress pulled down to the armpits and held the arm straight out. I then pinned a straight line down to create the sides of the dress.

Now, just so you guys don't start to think I'm actually getting good at this sewing thing... this is what happened when sewing the sides up.

Go home, sewing machine, you're drunk.

 

That is my needle stuck in the down position, with the fabric shoved through the feed dog and down into the machine (where the bobbin is). Do I know how this happened? Not a flippin' clue. What did I have to do about it? Well... tear it apart.

After tearing it all apart I decided to just go ahead and clean it with a few q-tips. I hadn't done this since I bought the machine and I have a cover on it when not in use so I figured it wasn't all that dirty. Holy hell, was I wrong. Check this nastiness out. (Warning: clean freaks beware)

So, lesson learned: machine will be cleaned much MUCH more often.

 

Eventually, machine was cleaned, jam was fixed and the sides were sewn up. I then sewed the back up about an inch or so to make up for the loss of the zipper, and then I folded down the sides from the armpit to the back to create a slight v in the back and to clean it up a bit.

 

Final product? I'm pretty happy with it. Now I have a flowy, summery maxi dress to have some lazy days in these hot hot summers.

And the back looks a little something like this:

I'm excited to wear it! Thanks for reading - as always, leave your comments below or give me your critiques, hoorays and whatever else have you at thriftysew@gmail.com (please!).

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Thursday all and, more importantly, happy Independence Day!!! This is by no means a political blog or anything like that - but damn do I love this country, our rights to even have a blog that I can say this on, and the military men and women that fight for those rights.

In saying all that, I have to preface this project with this: this was done earlier in the week and I had totally forgot about this "red white and blue" thing. Hopefully, that will be coming and I can show you pictures of a fantastic outfit fit for 4th of July festivities to be celebrated Saturday.

Also - the before picture is a straight up photo fail. I did not realize a stack of projects was covering the bottom corner of the screen, I should have probably put some effort into makeup (or at least thrown contacts in) and the face is atrocious. But... so be it. Here's the beauty I was working with:

This had a gorgeous circle skirt and the waist elastic was in pretty new shape. The downfalls was the in-your-face pattern (is that newsprint?!), the high neckline and the less-than-fantabulous elastic in the arms. Someone with a small waist and unfortunately large arms previously owned this dress, I think. 

First task at hand was to take out the shoulder pads. Not sure if these half-moons even considered themselves shoulder pads or just wannabe's, but they were outed nonetheless.

Next, since the dress fit pretty well in the sides thanks to the waist elastic, I took off a few inches of length from the circle skirt to bring it roaring into the 21st century.

Next, of course, the arms had to go.


... just kidding! I know that is what is expected so I definitely kept the arms. I cut off the stretched out and deformed arm elastic and chopped off a few more inches for good measure. Considering it has been super humid and in the high 80's in here (I know it doesn't sound hot to, say, Iraq or California, but add the humidity we've been having and it feels high 1000's and sweat happens in -1 seconds) short sleeves were a must.

The next thing that I did, that unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of, was open up the neckline. The neck was wayyy up there and it was screaming for a way out. I found the middle and cut down about 4 inches, then folded over the edges, sewed it down and cut off the excess. The final result I'm pretty in love with and it, despite not being white, red or blue for the holiday, is super comfy and a smash hit in the Thompson household.

Also, I'm not going to brag or anything, and I certainly didn't see this coming until I was feeding my Pintrest addition, but I pinned this dress a few days ago and didn't realize until I saw a picture of my project but I totally remade this dress:

which can be found at this site for $168. Alternatively, I made mine for a whopping $3.50. Boom.

 

Hope everyone is enjoying the festivities, and to those outside of the US on this date... feel free to consider yourself American on this day and have yourself a cook out and blow shit up. We kinda do the same thing on St. Patrick's Day.