Fastest Tshirt Refashion EVAR! (no sew!)

So after a couple false-starts on refashions (where either something didn't work, or my end pictures didn't turn out right), I just wanted to get SOMETHING done to show you guys I'm still alive!
And I found the perfect candidate.

It's not a bad shirt! Men's Medium?

It's been MONSOONING all afternoon, so comfy clothes was the order of the day. This tshirt is fine, as far as regular ol' comfy tshirts go, but I wanted something cute as well as comfy!

I was inspired by the trimming done on this refashion by CTA Glam Couture

Someday I'll do their actual thing - the darts looks cute!

 

So I layed that shirt down and did some snipping!

I cut about an inch from the collar on both sides, and just under the collar on front and back.

 The sleeves were still lacking something for me, so I made another snip!

Right up the middle!

Then I took those two cut pieces and tied them together in a knot.

And that was it! Ta-dah!

Still comfy, loads cuter!

You know you want to go do this now ;)

Seriously, guys - it took longer to take the pictures than to do the refashion. Yay for a quick no-sew!

Thanks for stopping by!

Mwa!

From Sundress to Bathing Suit! DIY Tutorial

Are you guys ready for summer yet??

I wasn't quite feeling it in this summer dress.

I'm a stretchy polyester dress!

But I knew just what I wanted to do with it!

I started by chopping off the halter part of the bodice.

Ker-snip!

And then the halter ties as well.

I'm coming to pieces!

Then I pinned down a top hem, and pinned a couple of cup forms in place.

Stolen from another refashion piece!

I hemmed the top . . .

Whirrrrr....

And then hand-stitched the cups onto the inside of the bodice.

Once that was done, I planned the bottom.

Snipped off the bottom black strip, and put down some comfy sleepwear shorts as a guide!

 

I matched some leftover material to the crotch section of the shorts, and cut out a piece of polyester and a piece of cotton (from an old tshirt)

Apparently cotton is good for hygiene purposes.

Then I cut a small section into the bottom, to match the crotch section in the shorts.

It's about 2-3 inches long and half an in wide.

Then I pinned the two crotch pieces together, and pinned that new double-layered piece to the slit in the skirt.

Before pinning, to show how curved the slit is

Both sides pinned, right sides together (pattern facing each other)

I did a straight seam all the way around, and then went back and sewed a zigzag on the sides of the crotch piece.

And for some reason, this picture won't turn right-side up. Sorry about that!

  The last thing was hemming the bottom, sewing the sides to make it fitted, and sewing the straps on the top!

If you look closely, you can see the pins where I took it in.

And that's it!

Now, this is one refashion that won't be modeled by Yours Truly. But I can promise it's been pool-tested, and both works and fits great!

Now you can make one, too!

GUYS. I cannot tell you how stoked I am that this actually turned out! Now I don't have to spend forever searching for an affordable suit that I actually like! Woohoo!

Thanks for sticking with me! Mwa!

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!

Prim Prom Dress to Polka Party Skirt!

Here's to hoping the hottest part of the summer is behind us!

With temperatures ranging around 90 every time I came home from work, lemme just tell you . . . there wasn't much going on but sitting in front of a fan and eating ice.

But we've been blessed with cooler weather, and lookee what I have for you! Refashions! Yay! :D

It all started with this dress.

It's so pretty!

 Don't let the moody picture fool you. That's not how I felt about this dress. I felt more like this;

omigoodnessi'msoexcitedeeeeeeeek! Like that.

And I even asked the Facebook HopeCycle followers what they thought I should do with it! Some great ideas, guys. :)

But first - look what I didn't show you!

It's a corset back - with a modesty panel! Sweet!

What to do?

I started by deciding where to cut, and pinning all three layers of the skirt together so they wouldn't shift.

Safety pins, so I can't stick myself :D

Aaaand chop!

Lopsided chop! That's okay, it's fixable.

Today I'll show you what I did with the bottom half!

All my pins still in place, I put the whole thing through the sewing machine to make sure it held together just how I wanted.

Lemme tell you . . . that was a lot of material to shuttle through!

All sewed together!

I then turned the skirt inside out . . .

Look, it has crinoline!

And then I pressed the top part down, all along the seam-line I'd just made.

Nice and neat!

Then I folded it over again, so I have a nice inch and a quarter waistband for my inch-wide elastic to fit through.

Measuring and EVERYTHING.

Next, I switched white thread into my machine and verrrry carefully sewed along the very edge of the waistband.

Verrrry slowly.

Then I threaded the elastic through the little gap I'd left (safety pin in the end of it, of course), and then sewed the elastic ends together and finished by sewing the little gap closed! 

And LOOK!

It's like a tulip skirt! <3 Just the teeeensiest bit of high-low action to give it character!

It makes such a cute tea-length skirt!

It's so wonderfully full and poofy!

I love it when you pair something soft and feminine with something more edgy

So yeah. This is one of those items that I might have a hard time letting go of. BUT it's for a good cause! Check it out over at the Etsy store - all profit from the sale will be donated to fight Sex Trafficking in America!

Mwa! <3

Regular A-line to Fabulous Fifties skirt!

This refashion has been in the works for a little while! Mainly because I'm a busy pumpkin. And possibly lazy. But mostly busy!

But it started out like this!

So laz - I mean busy, I didn't even model it!

It's pretty! I love that print. But it needed something more . . .

I decided to go with this pretty red!

Leftovers from this little red dress - for sale!

I then cut matching slits all the way through the skirt.

Next time I do this, I'll remember that I've got a measuring tape in the closet. But this time I just eyeballed it!

Then I cut the red material in half, and then in half again, resulting in these matching pieces!

You can tell I was doing this at night . . . blurrrry . . .

Then I had to mess around a bit to figure out how to make this work (which is what happens when you're just making stuff up. Dangerous business). I finally figured out that I had to pin it right-sides together in order to have the seams on the inside of the skirt.

Pin pin pin!

I did that all the way around, and put it through the machine!

Making sure to take the pins out as I go, so I don't break another needle . . .

So I'm sure you've figured out I'm adding pleats to this skirt! So I had to sew the pleats on the outside in order to have the seams on the inside, but then I just pulled the pleats back through the opening. But then what to do with that loose top bit? (Sorry there's no picture to explain what I mean by that - but we only sewed the sides down, so there was extra material flopping around at the top of each pleat that needed to be taken care of!)

Just sewed it to the inside hem of the waist band! Win!

Ta-Dah! From regular to retro!

Yay, pleats!

I really love the modern-but-also-fifties look of this skirt!

Too bad you can't see my shoes - they're fabulous, too. :D

And look how fun and full it is!

"I feel pretty, oh so prettyyyyy . . ."

So now you know how to add pleats to a skirt without completely deconstructing the whole thing! Hope it helps!

(Update:) This skirt has been sold, and 100% of the profits will be donated to fight Sex Trafficking in America! Hurray!

Much love! <3