Midieval Sham to Holiday Glam Dress!

Phew! This dress was a long way in the making!

Do you remember a little (long) while ago when I had the Towel-Head Dress Challenge? Well, I just finished one! Aren't you proud of me??

There's no winner for this dress, as nobody suggested what I ended up doing. (But you can still make suggestions for the other dresses! Click the link above and comment!!)

So I started with this forest green number.

Semi-midieval?

My first step was to make it slightly more fitted at the waist.

Turn it inside out, pin it and sew!

And then came the CHOP!

But a very artistic chop, no?

This is one of those blogs where I really didn't take enough pictures for all the steps I made. Don't worry - you'll still get the idea. :)
So instead of hemming the new bottom to my dress, I used my burn tool to singe the edges. No more fraying going on there!

My  next step was to deal with that green stripey guy.

I pinned the hems together so the fabric placement wouldn't be lost, then picked out the seams!

So then I took a length of sheer curtain material I'd been given, and draped it around the dress, pinning to the seams.

The dress is still inside out here, btw :)

It's hard to show what I did next, but basically I put the white material in front of the green triangle, repinning the green behind the white as I went, and sewed it all together.

So now the green is like a modesty panel behind the sheer white. Makes sense?

I used my burn tool on the white to cut the extra off, and to remove the obvious "I was a curtain" hem that was on there. 

Then I stitched the white to the seams of the dress!

So I only sewed on the seam there, so no stitches would show through on the skirt.

Lots of back-stitching in a little area - so almost more like a tack.

And then it was time to tackle those sleeves!

More burn-tool action!

Lastly, I decided the front needed a little design to really finish this off.

Cut carefully!

And that was it! Tadah!

We even had snow for the occasion!

I love the asymetrical draping of the white under-skirt!

And the back goes up in a V - like a flower!

Check out those poinsettias! Don't you want to wear this to your next holiday party?

One Towel-Head dress down . . . Three to go! Pop over to the Towel-Head Challenge post and give you suggestions! (There may or may not be cookies involved if you do . . . ;)

Thank you for reading! Mwa!

'Meh' to 'Marvelous!' shirt refashion - take 2!

So you remember that bright green shirt - and how I tried to turn it into a skirt, but it didn't work?
Well, I had another shirt EXACTLY like it, except it was white. So why not try the same idea again, having learned from my earlier mistakes?

Shirt to skirt refashion, take 2!

I decided for this one to cut straight all the way across the top, instead of leaving a funny round hole like I did last time.

Notice that I didn't cut into the sleeves at all. That's important for later.

I pinned closer to the sleeve-seam as well, and made a nice straight line with my seam.

Pull 'em out as you go!

Because of last time's fiasco, I tried it on right after I'd sewn the second seem. The results???

No dice, guys. At least for my tender, modest sensibilities, I'm thinking t-shirt skirts are going to be just too tight on me.
BUT! I already knew how to save this! But I didn't want to do the exact same thing as last time.

Trim off the excess! Save those sleeves!

I flipped it upside down, so the wide, hemmed bottom became the new top - and then I gathered the new top into pleats to make it fitted!

Gasp! Instant tube-top!

Here's an up-close of the pins on the inside, in case you were wondering :)

The bottom needed hemming now, so I made a nice flat hem with a zig-zag stitch to preserve stretchiness.

I know, the pins are facing the wrong direction. OOPS. It just means a tiny bit more work as you go, no biggie.

The pleats needed to be hand-sewed together, as they'd be too thick for my poor machine.

Carefully doing some invisible stitching to hold it all together!

Now remember those sleeves I was so careful not to damage during the first cut? Good thing I saved 'em!

I trimmed them both into thick, slightly curved straps.

And once again sewed a lettuce-hem around that raw edge with a zig-zag stitch.

Make sure to pull tight as you go, or you won't get those pretty ruffles!

So then it was just pin those buggers on, sew 'em up, and there you have it!

TA-DAH!!!

Oooooh!

I have to say, I think I'm the most happy about this one than any I've done in a while!

Ahhhh!

So there you go! Two different shirt refashions from the same basic style! What will YOU do with your tshirts??

Mwa! <3

'Meh' to 'Marvelous!' t-shirt refashion!

How's your winter going? Ours is turning rather warm at the moment - no complaints here! And in honor of this spring-like weather, I bring you a summery t-shirt refashion!

I started out with this lovely donation here:

Howww shall I do eet?

Taking inspiration from Jillian over at Refashionista, I wanted to try turning a shirt into a skirt! Seems simple, yes?

I started by snipping off the collar.

Bye, itchy tag!

And then widened the opening by 1-2 inches on each side.

Eyeballing totally fine here.

I then pinned (forgot to photograph that step, sorry!!) and sewed a diagonal line up each side from an inch above the bottom up to the old shoulders.

Say "g'bye", sleeves!

I tried it on. There was actually a lot of trying on and fiddling at this point . . . and I finally gave in and realized it just wasn't going to work. Not as a skirt . . . too tight. (I'll save you the embarrassment of showing you the evidence :D)

This is why it's always good to let something rest when you're frustrated with working on it! I'm SO glad I didn't stop there and give up.

The next day I tried it back on and realized it made a really CUTE baby-doll shirt - it just needed straps!
Quick, get those sleeves you just chopped off!

Snip them free of the remains of the shirt, and then snip the sleeve open.

The original sleeve hem was going to be my strap, and the wide part the new cap-sleeve. It need hemming!

zig-zag stitch, and stretch the fabric as you go, and what do you get?

These super cute lettuce hems!

I ended up having to trim the sleeves back and needing to hem them AGAIN, but you get the idea.

I tried it on and pinned the new sleeves where they'd give me optimal coverage

And then sewed those buggers on!

Whrrrr!

The last little step was hand tacking the straps to the top of the shirt so there wouldn't be any weird floppy bits.

So that's the bottom of the sleeve/strap on the left, and I'm sewing it to the top of the shirt. Clear as mud?

And that's it! TADAHHH!

A nice long baby-doll!

Look how cute those new sleeves are!

And check out the back!

I'm rather proud of how this turned out! What do you think? Seems doable? I'd love to see your shirt refashions!

Mwa~!

HopeCycle will be part of the Hearts Should Be Free giveaway!

Are you a fan of winning things? And also supporting charities at the same time?

Me too. :D

Well, Gale from the blog Such Fun to Give is having a giveaway starting January 15th-February 15th! There will be several giveaways during her Hearts Should Be Free event, and one of them includes prizes from shops that donate 100% of their profits to fight Trafficking!

Does that sound like HopeCycle to you? It should!

More details will follow, but be on the lookout for this fun giveaway; it's a chance to win a one-of-a-kind HopeCycle item (or something equally cool from another store), and raise awareness along the way!

<3 Holly

Dressy skirt to Dress-Skirt!

Happy new year, everybody!

It was my hope to have a fabulous Christmas/New Years refashion for you, but that dress is still in the works. (Maybe you'll see it by . . . St. Patrick's day.)

Today's refashion is quick and painless! I started off with this donated skirt:

Hmmm . . .

It's got a nice print, and I love the length (I'm all about the maxis!), but it needs some work before HopeCycle can have it's way with it!

If you look closely, you can see that the waistline isn't hemmed AT ALL at the top - fray city!

"help meee!"

The first thing I did was pull the stretchy inner lining out, like so;

And I cut out some arm holes!

That jaggedy edge up there . . . that's going to be an arm hole. Trust me.

The arm holes just needed a quick hemming.

With a zig zag stitch!

And the waist got itself a rolled hem to catch all those frays!

More zig-zagging!

And there you have it!

TA-DAH!

A dress with a cowl-neck!

Or a capelet!

Or a draped back!

Or pin it up into an empire-waist! (Pay no attention to my slip, there...)

The neckline options are endless! And in case you can't see the differences very well, here's some sketches to make it more clear.

These sketches use croquis from the Pocket Fashion Sketchbook (yay, Christmas presents!)

And what's great is, you still have the skirt, fully functional! Woohoo!

Thanks for sticking around guys! Mwa!