Refashioning my refashion

I didn't blog about this top after I had made it, so I will introduce you to it right now.

This shirt was originally 2 shirts and a tank top.  All stretched out, or worn out or holey.  They needed a new home, and it was either going to be back in my closet, or in a donation bin.
 I decided that I had nothing to lose by refashioning it, so I this was the start of the shirt (sorry no tank top pictures!)
The beggining of the shirt:

 This was the middle - a cowl neck shirt, with complete stain? how did I miss that!

 The end result was this tank top. I don't normally expose my arms, because if you couldn't tell I am afraid of the sun, but I needed to show 'em off for this post, YAY!

Ruchey Goodness Tutorial

If there are any fellow sewers out there who actually wanted to try out the ruchey goodness shirt, I have made a tutorial for you! Here are the following steps.

Remove original neckband (if you want to reuse it, seam rip it and set it aside)

Fold front of shirt in half, mark the distance from the fold of how much you want to take out (I removed 3 inches from the centre, 6 in total)

You can either leave the middle section folded, or unfold it like I did.  You will use this piece as a template for your new section.

Take your middle piece and lay it down on the other piece of fabric that will become your new middle piece. Add once inch around the side and the top (for seam allowance)  I added 20 inches from the bottom of the original hem.  Add as much or as little as you want for desired ruching effect.

Now gather the fabric.  I gathered mine by basting, and then hand gathering. 

Pin the right sides together of the new middle piece and the front sides.

Pin your neckband to the shirt. I have also re-hemmed the bottom and taken the sleeves up

Once you are all hemmed up, you are finished, voila!!

Yea, I hate taking my own picture, that is why I am wearing those glasses.

Ruchey goodness

I have been in love with a certain top from Rickis, but since I am not in Canada, and don't feel like paying a ton of money for the shirt, plus shipping, I decided to DIY.

The shirt in question that I am trying to recreate

Forgot to take a before picture of the original top, but this is the same shirt in black.

The end result

It didn't turn out exactly like the shirt, I should have added more length to the grey section so it gathered a lot more, and also should have made it less wide.  I will still wear it, but I am trying it again with the black shirt as we speak.

Green Stripe Goodness

This shirt started out originally as a mens Large shirt.  I bought it from Old navy a while ago because it was green and stripey and I couldn't resist it.

Ignore the mess behind my mannequin, this is sort of the "catch all room".

It looks un-even, but trust me it's just the mannequin

I cut off the original neckline, dug through my scraps and found a dark emerald green that matched the green stripes on the shirt.

Elastic on the sleeves

I didn't end up cutting any length off the sleeves because I wanted to do that "elastic sleeve" look.  I found the middle of the sleeve and ran elastic from the bottom of the sleeve to the shoulder to make it look gathered.

The top ended up looking just the way I wanted, and it didn't take much effort since I didn't do much hemming of the shirt.

My name is Plex, Plex, p p p p p p p p p p Plex!

So Booger Bears birthday is tomorrow, and I really wanted to make him something that he might actually enjoy, so I decided on this.

It's Plex from Yo Gabba Gabba.  I can't quite be 100% sure that Plex is his favourite, but judging by the fact that he grabbed a Plex Beanie Baby over the rest of the crew leads me to beleive he does like him the best.

It took a few days of back and forth to the fabric store, but I finished it!
I had sewed the yellow head on first without interfacing and holy crap was it awful!  I took the yellow off, put some interfacing onto the back of the shirt as well as all the other pieces, and it looks loads better!  The eyes are crooked, and there are bits that I don't like, but at the end of the day, no one can look at that shirt and not think it looks just like a magic robot!
Also, just to add an extra bit of love to the shirt, the blue used to be a shirt I LOVED in highschool.  I saved the shirt, hoping to someday use it for myself again and then one day I must have been too scissor happy and I ruined the shirt.  I guess I had saved it for some reason and  since my parents are visiting from Canada and they brought down one of my old fabric bins I discovered it there.  Now, the blue is being passed down to my son and maybe he will love his blue shirt as much as I loved mine.

Fin.

Finished, but not really

The dress in question, sorry for the messy play room

Top without the bottom band

Top pulled down, with bottom band.

This top is too tight at the moment, but I don't have enough fabric to fix it, so I have to save it for further along on my weight loss journey.  I'm stuck at the moment though for what to do with this top.  I think I need to ditch the white band at the bottom and just hem the shirt as it.  The material is really stretchy too, so it pulls down and I can make it really long, but I don't want it too long.  Watch this space for further shirt improvements.

Refashioned Top

Slowly refashioning clothes as I go along.  This used to be a plain black long sleeved top that I bought last year because I needed something to wear in the winter.  I hemmed the sleeves to 3/4 (can't stand long sleeves).  I took an old skirt that I never wore, and took the waistband and put it on the bottom of the shirt.  I cut the rest of the skirt to make a cowl neck type top.  Overall I like this top much better than what I had before and have already worn it out in public (yay for not being ashamed in clothes I refashioned!)

Still kind of a black boring top, but it looks a lot better than it started off as (which I had a picture!)  The bottom band is a little tight at the moment, but I don't usually pull my tops down like I did in the picture.

flying horse shirt

Was finally able to get something re-conned and sewn up, I had this horse tank top in my collection for a long time and didn’t want to get rid of it. I had some old grey material laying around so I finally re-jigged the shirt so I was able have the top half and the sleeves as that colour.

The first pictures are of the finished product, the last one is the tank top (but I had just cut the straps off).

Yay for finally being able to sew something!

First Birthday Onesie

I will try and post a picture of this tomorrow (as long as I'm feeling well enough to sew...fighting a sickness suuuucks).
I've decided to do this the easy way, rather than searching for a onesie that declares Clarks 1st Birthday, and trying to find it in an 18 month size, I am taking a onesie from his plethora of white onesies and sewing a red "1" on it. Why red? Because it's his favourite colour!

So, here is crossing my fingers for tomorrow!

Edit:
Here it is!! It's simple, because my sewing skills, well they aren't limited, but they aren't that creative either. Plus, I plan on having this on him during the cake eating session, so he can mess it up without me freaking out about "You're supposed to wear that again!"