I am in love with the unusual looking kind of clothing. If anyone remembers junkyard wars then you will remember the futureistic recycled looking clothes they wore there.  I have a facination with this and have founs someone to be inspired by. Her high collars are very inspired and the mixtures of materials and cuts it to die for. She has a very keen eye when it comes to embelishments and this makes me so jealous!

the pic links to myspace page for Jodito and then there is her craftster link here 

maybe i will be ambitious soon and try my hand in the remaking of clothes that would be less of a standard and more into the unusually hip :) 

Trying once again to dress my younger one.

So many resources for fabric in our storage. I found lots of sleep pants, almost too many for my son to wear one a day for a month!

So now to make something else that he might need. I know he needs a little bit better looking clothing than the p.j.'s and cutsie baby stuff. I thought i need to start manking him something that is a little more grown up and kid looking., not baby.

I thought to myself that a vest could be the best thing because he has a lot of shirts that have that food stain that i cannon get rid of and a vest can cover that very well and extend the life of those shirts.

Now i start the easy vest from fleece sleep pants

You start this out by stripping the pants of the elastic and taking out the inseam.

Then fold the pants in half to even up the cut of the fabric. you can see in the picture where there is a part that is longer. I cut a straight line across here to make the bottom of the vest.

 Then lay the pants flat with the seams that we left to the sides. Cut a rounded collar to the back of the neck and then cut a v for the front. But if you do not have a nicely cut pair of pants you can lay a pattern or a premade vest over this to get a better cut.

Then in the next picture it shows how i folded it and pinned it for sewing but then i decided to put an edge stitch on the fabric first, but this is optional to whatever kind of fabric you are using.  you do not see the edge stiitching in the pic but  you get the idea. so fold, pin, and stitch. (order of stitching in next picture)

When you do the fold and stitch (areas for the first stitches are in red) you want to do the arms front to back or back to front. and then the v, and then for the rounded collar you might need to make some triangle cuts in the edge to make it easier to sew without pucker or bumps (this is one of the reasons we do pinning. It helps us figure out how the stitch will go before we stitch it) 

Then when it is all nice and edged you want to stitch the join seam at the shoulder (pointed out with blue arrows)

And that should be it!! if the vest is too wide then just sew a seam up both of the seams on the side to get the right fit for your child. i took mine in about a inch in total for a slightly tighter fit. If you are real patient you can try a more tailored fit for a girl's vest. Or another idea is adding buttons, but that is too complicated for me right now.

but it looked like my boy liked his vest.

Going through the maternity stuff again and finding the things i would never wear again i came across the ugly overalls i had when i was pregnant. Well they were cute actually on a pregnant woman but not on me because i was HUGE!!! But now being smaller and have a slightly more flattering waist i thought these would make a cute apron.

Above is the Huge pair of overalls.

I started by taking out the inseam.  

Then i took out the seam on the side 

Took off the straps from their place on the back

I stitched the sides of the back piece, cut off right above the pockets and stitched that up too…  

Totally cutt off the straps and stitched them together

I placed the back piece on the front piece, and then pinned and sewed it right up..  I then cut it for legnth made adjustments like sewing the front pockets shut and cut out the lining because they were just too bulky. I then hemmed up all around the sides and bottom. I cut off the part where the metal buttons reside on the side because it was too bulky too.  

The final touch was to attatch the connected straps to the latches as you would the way they origionally go. . I then took and made some tie straps and attatched them.

In the picture where i wear the apron i have lifted the waist and folded for a nice triple layer at the waist which is a nice protectant from the dish water that always soaks me when i lean against the sink..

But here you go!!!!

I Had my second Child Recently and was left with the maternity clothes and the post partum Fat clothes in my basement. I have been slowly going through them to see what i can do and i made my wat to the one thing i have so many of yet so little of. Let me clarify, I have many nursing bras that are almost like new and not many standard bras that are in the same decent condition. I decided to revamp the nursing bras.

This is a simple thing to do and requires little to no sewing experience but if you do not know how to make a simple stitch through two pieces of material than you might be in trouble.

But other than that here is what you will need"

Needle

thread

Nursing bra

nips of some sort to cut through plastic

Elastic (eyou might find this elastic from another bra, underwear or whatknot but you can buy some if you like spending money.  

start by knowing that i am working with one of those plastic latch bras the bottom part hooks onto the top and then snaps into position . (there are different kind of latches but i am pretty sure you can revamp those too. just use your noggin) 

I severed the bottom latch at the top of the cup of the bra making sure not to cut the fabric. Remove the plastic from that and toss.

(sorry for the pic. the autofocus does not work too well in dim light)

Then I removed the inner liner because we will not need that anymore But still save this because you might need it if it has something in it like elastic you can reuse

Using the same nips i then cut the latch nub ONLY from the top plastic piece that is connected to the strap. If there is some jagged parts then file them down with an emery board or something that can smooth the plastic.

Using the discarded inner piece of fabric i cut the elastic out to use to attatch the plastic back onto the strap. (sorry for the paint on my hands. WHat can i say?? i am a crafter!!)

Stitch the elastic in place

Loop through

Stitch on the end and cut the excess off and there is your new comfort bra!!  

(my kitty cat helped me too) 

I have been blogging about revamping your clothes and using what you have on hand and save money instead of buying a whole new wardrobe.

This girl has taken the simple t-shirt revamp to a whole new level.

This is a must see for freestyle t shirt reconstructing with flair!

Turn your husband's old pants (or new if you have some spite in your heart) into a tote for yourself!

MAKE THIS…. 

 FROM THESE!

The tutorial will slowly be appearing when i get the pictures around and loaded so keep on checking back.

First you Need to think that you will be working with two rectangles that are sewn on three sides. That is a bag. Simple.

SO here is goes..

I took the scissors and the seam ripper and took the pants apart on the inseam. all the way up the crothch stopping at the bottom of the zipper.

Then I cut (horizontal in the photo) across the pants above the pockets that the arrow is pointing at, then I made the same cut below the pocket to give me a piece of fabric to work with from each leg. 

The sides are not quite straight so when I sew up the seam I have to draw what would be the straight line up the side and sew along the line drawn.  

I start that by placing the two piece of fabric face together and then pin the edges together to get the fabric to stay straight when drawing the line. (make sure to start pinning along any seams in the fabric that you want to match)  

Then you figure out where a straight line is and draw it with a fabric pen or pencil (I just used a sharpie because that is what I had on hand already but I do not reccomend it because it might bleed through the fabric and not come out)  After drawing the line, sew along it. repeating for the other side. 

 Cut off the excess from the sides and then continue to to do the line and seam for the bottom, cut off the excess from that too. 

This is what the bag looks like so far. Now it is time to cover the ugly edge at the top. I thought it would be best to use the waist band from the pants. I cut the wait band out and cut off the belt loops. I stitched along the stitching that was already in the waist band connecting it to the top of the bag. 

 And then the final step was to sew in the handles to the bag (easy) the handles were just the hem lines cut out of the legs of the pants and then sew a line back and forth to attatched them to the top of the bag. 

And here you go!

Side note

-you can do a lining, actually should but That will be for a different tutorial. I am leaving my bag with out a lining so i can sew decoration onto the bag then put on a lining.

My first try!

I just got done turning my husband's plaid dress shirt into a cute casual shirt for me.

I do not have a step by step tutorial with photos because I had no time. i was trying to do the shirt as a trial before the boys woke up.

Here is what i did to it.

I first cut the sleeves off

turned it inside out and fitted it for a new seam against my torso. Pinned where i wanted to tailor the seam, sewed it up along the line and then cut off the excess.

Then i took the sleeves and cut them shorter, turned them so the cuff opening was in the front and then switched arms so i could use the excess part of the sleeve as a slight pucker. I took in the shoulders then attached the sleeves. and then i was done!

Here is the finished product. For my first time it is not so bad!