Sew Chic Upcycling Guest Post: This Crazy, Blessed Life

Thrift it, Repurpose It, Remake it

and Wear it!

Today's Sew Chic Upcycling post is from my AMAZING co-host:  Sarah from This Crazy, Blessed Life  Her blog has so much to share! She shares weekly menus, couponing ideas, sewing and crafting tutorials and recipes. You have to check it out!

Sarah and I have become quick blogging friends over past few months. She tried out one of my patterns and fell in love with it's simplicity. You can find it here: The Laurie Claire Tunic for Women. She has such a sweet and creative spirit and I was so excited when she asked me to co-host this Sew Chic Upcycling Event with her. What started as a small idea to have a week's worth of guest posters turned into 2 weeks of guest posters, a linky party and prizes! I'm so glad I met her!
And wait until you see what she makes for you today!

Take it away, Sarah!

Hey everyone!  I'm Sarah from This Crazy Blessed Life.   This is where I share recipes, crafts and tutorials, my adventures in sewing, and life as a mom. 

I'm so excited to be hosting this awesome event with Jenny.  It's so funny how things work and how this event was brought to life.  I think Jenny and I have emailed back and forth about 50 times and this event has exceeded our expectations!  Thank YOU for reading our guest posts and participating in the UPCYCLING linky party!

Okay, now on to my creation!  I wanted to create something that was easily duplicated.  That was practical.  And easy.

My daughter is a skinny minny.  She has no problem fitting into pants or shorts that she wore two years ago.  We'd never have to buy clothes if it weren't for her getting taller, LOL!  She's 4 in two weeks and these jeans 2Ts! For this project, I grabbed a pair of too short pants.

It's hard to tell here, but these bad boys ride up about 4 inches when she sits down.  And yep, we didn't realize that until we were out somewhere this Spring.  I'm sure people thought, "Buy that girl some clothes that fit!"  Oh well...

While wearing them, I marked the desired length with a straight pin.  Then had her take them off carefully :) 

I wanted a 1/2 inch hem, so I added 1 inch to the mark that I made.  You could totally use a fabric pen or something else to mark them, but I just measured and pinned all the way around to give me my cutting lines.


Now, chop those suckers off!  And keep your scraps!  You never know when you'll need to make a denim rosette.  Am I right?



 

Now, turn them inside out and iron the cuff over 1/4 to 1/2 inch.  Then turn the cuff over another 1/2 inch and iron.

Now sew!

These are adorable as is.  But we all know that adding ruffles makes anything even cuter!

To create your ruffle, cut a strip of fabric 1.5 to 2 times as long as you would need to go around the leg.  Does that make sense?  This is not an exact science.  If your strip is shorter, your ruffle is less ruffly.  And if it's longer, it's more ruffly.


Now, zig zag stitch the edges of the ruffle to prevent fraying.  Then, with your sewing machine on straight stitch, make your stitches as long as your machine goes and stitch up the middle.  Make sure not to back stitch at all!


Your strip will look like this.



Now holding the back thread, pull the fabric up and make your fabric gather.  Pin to your shorts and sew it on.
{Make sure to change your stitch length back.  I always forget this step!}




I hope you find her modeling pictures as humorous as I did.  I took like 25 pictures and this was all I got.  The others had arms all funky and her eyes closed {purposely, mind you}.


Here's what I love about this project:


1) Your shorts are the perfect length!  They aren't daisy dukes.  And they aren't Bermuda shorts either.  This is my hardest thing when shopping for shorts for me and Layne!


2) Match your ruffle to a top and you've got a custom outfit!  I made a simple Minnie Mouse Applique tee using the same fabric and now we've got a custom outfit for our Disney Trip in September!
{And I've already planned what day she will wear this.  And what they will wear every other day.  I'm just a little excited about our trip!  Can you tell?!?}


Thanks for sticking it out if you made it this far!  And come visit me sometime!  I love new Bloggy Friends!

Now it's YOUR TURN!Link up your original upcycled or recycled fashions from August 1-12th for a chance to WIN PRIZES!
Winners will be announced August 12th. Check out our AMAZING SPONSORS below!

LINKY RULES:

1. Link a CLOTHING project you upcycled or recycled.

2. Add this button to your blog or post so more people can join the fun!

3. Follow Seamingly Smitten and This Crazy, Blessed Life

And add this button to your post!

<a href="http://thiscrazyblessedlife.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i1137.photobucket.com/albums/n504/Rah1515/RefashionWeekcopy.jpg" /></a>

Go ahead, show us what ya got!

A HUGE Thank you to our SPONSORS:

Check back tomorrow for more upcycled projects!

Sew Chic Upcycling Guest Post from Recycled-Fashions

Thrift it, Repurpose It, Remake it

and Wear it!

Also, check out another Sew Chic Upcycling creation on my co-host's blog:  Sarah from This Crazy, Blessed Life

Today's guest poster is Erica Louise from Recycled Fashion. She has committed herself to only using thrifted and upcycled clothing and sews completely creatively and stays on trend while doing it!
Take it away, Erica!

Hello, and thanks for Jenny of Seamingly Smitten for inviting me to take part in Sew Chic Upcycling week!


My name is Erica, I blog over at Recycled Fashion where you'll often find me creating fashion from thrift finds, sometimes I use clothing fabric, but I have been known to make dresses from upholstery fabric and tablecloths!


Fitting in with Recycled Fashion's theme, for Sew Chic Upcycling, I have made a bracelet cuff out of a thrifted mens necktie, a strap from a red reusable grocery bag, and some thrifted vintage buttons from my collection.


I did not purposely cut up the reusable bag, in fact the straps were leftover after a top I made from the bag itself.


The bag strap gives the bracelet cuff some thickness. I machine stitched pleats all the way along the strap, and cut a point at the end. It attaches around the wrist with hand stitched snap fasteners, and backed with black felt obtained from a recycle center.






A photograph of the back before backing with felt ...


Lastly, black felt stuck to the back using fabric glue:




And it's done!
Now it's YOUR TURN!Link up your original upcycled or recycled fashions from August 1-12th for a chance to WIN PRIZES!
Winners will be announced August 12th. Check out our AMAZING SPONSORS below!

LINKY RULES:

1. Link a CLOTHING project you upcycled or recycled.

2. Add this button to your blog or post so more people can join the fun!

3. Follow Seamingly Smitten and This Crazy, Blessed Life

And add this button to your post!

<a href="http://thiscrazyblessedlife.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i1137.photobucket.com/albums/n504/Rah1515/RefashionWeekcopy.jpg" /></a>

Go ahead, show us what ya got!

A HUGE Thank you to our SPONSORS:

Check back tomorrow for more upcycled projects!

Sew Chic Upcycling Guest Post - Small Town Stitcher

Thrift it, Repurpose It, Remake it

and Wear it!

Also, check out another Sew Chic Upcycling creation on my co-host's blog:  Sarah from This Crazy, Blessed Life

Today's guest poster is Kelli from Small Town Stitcher. Everytime I check out her blog I am completely inspired to look at fabric or piece of clothing in a new way and I know YOU will BE INSPIRED by her post today. Check out what she made!

Take it away, Kelli...

Hey y'all, my name is Kelli and you can find me over at Small Town Stitcher.  I’m a kindergarten teacher turned SAHM that uses my me-time to sew.  I love to make quilts, gifts, and especially since befriending Jenny, clothes for both my daughter and myself.  Sorry to my husband and son...girls' clothes are just more fun!  I met Jenny through a link-up party where I saw one of her awesome creations and realized this girl’s got talent.  We started talking back and forth through comments and I jumped at the chance to be a pattern tester for her.  If you haven’t tried her patterns, you’re missing out.  She gives easy, clear directions to make super cute items!  

When Jenny asked me to be a part of this refashion series, I decided that whatever I made had to come from my closet.  I considered a couple of things, had a craft-fail that will soon be re-refashioned into something else, (check my blog in a week or so for that one...) and finally settled on this skirt right here.  As you can see in the picture, it's not bad.  It fits fine, it looks fine, it's just not WOW!  But...I'm turning it into a WOW and with minimal changing, so I could always change it back if I wanted to...even better!!

But what to do with it??  I searched refashions online for inspiration and saw this:  

Found here

And I had my answer.  I didn't even read through the tutorial, although that was just fine because when I looked back, I realized it was a link to another tutorial in French.  ;)

So here's what I did:

1.  Find a skirt at least knee length, the longer the skirt the more options you have for styling.  It needs to have side seams.  This is a cheap, polyester knit from Walmart of all places, so fabric doesn't matter.

2.  Put the skirt on inside out and flip the hem up to your shoulders to see how it will fit as a top.  The skirt's waistband becomes the bubble hem of your new top.  My skirt had a large knit waistband and it's super comfortable, but I imagine a fastened band would be fine if it feels fine to you.  You'll need to adjust the side seams to accomodate your arms, so decide how big you want the "sleeves" to be.
    On my skirt, I went for a sleeveless look, so I just left the hem intact as my shoulder seams and neckline.  then I ripped out the side seams for 8 inches.  Once I made sure I liked that look, I just quickly sewed down the already folded edges to hem up the armholes.  By using the long skirt, it gave the neckline a neat cowl-effect as well.

3.  Now here's the last step:  See how I had a kick pleat in the back of the skirt?  Well, that was a little too low in the back for me...I don't want everyone to see how I fasten my bra, so I just pinned the pleat closed a little higher and sewed along the hemline to hide the stitching.  That way the design element of the open back is still there, but I'm only showing what I'm comfortable with.  ;)

5.  And you're done.  Cute, right?  But here's the best part:  Because my skirt was mid-calf length originally, I have the option of wearing this shirt in different lengths!  I can wear it to bubble at my natural waist, 

at a drop-waist length, like a tunic,

and...as a cute dress!  

In all, it took me A LOT longer to photograph the steps and write up this post than it took to transform this boring skirt into something more fun and hip.  And with my seam ripper and 10 minutes I can always change it back if I need a long, black skirt!  

I encourage you to look around the web, look around your closet and see what you can change.  It's a quick and easy way to brighten your day and your look!  Thanks again to Jenny for having me over!  I'd love it if y'all came and visited me at my blog anytime.


And it's done!
Now it's YOUR TURN!
Link up your original upcycled or recycled fashions from August 1-12th for a chance to WIN PRIZES!
Winners will be announced August 12th. Check out our AMAZING SPONSORS below!

LINKY RULES:

1. Link a CLOTHING project you upcycled or recycled.

2. Add this button to your blog or post so more people can join the fun!

3. Follow Seamingly Smitten and This Crazy, Blessed Life

And add this button to your post!

<a href="http://thiscrazyblessedlife.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="Photobucket" border="0" src="http://i1137.photobucket.com/albums/n504/Rah1515/RefashionWeekcopy.jpg" /></a>

Go ahead, show us what ya got!

A HUGE Thank you to our SPONSORS:

Check back tomorrow for more upcycled projects!