Showing posts with label Clothing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Clothing. Show all posts
Thursday, March 27, 2014

Purple Pants...NO WAY!!!

Ok, so YES WAY!!! is the response to the title of my post.  By the way, you get to see a bunch of pictures of my legs.  Aren't you excited?!? 

Here's why...I just refashioned a pair of pants into a pair of capris...and not just any capris, but PURPLE capris!  Yes, I am Stylin'!!!

My mom gave me several pair of jeans and capris the last time she came to visit.  She's lost some weight and with my weight loss I have had a need for smaller jeans, etc.  Unfortunately I am taller than my mom and some of the jeans are petites.  It's not an attractive look on a not so petite figure, but I LOVE capris so why not transform them.  And to kick it up a notch I decided to dye them as well.

I really wanted pink...BRIGHT pink...capris, but to get bright pink capris it's helpful to start with white before dying.  I did not do that.  I didn't want to mess with bleach and hours of soaking.  I did a bunch of reading on how to dye jean and Rit's website said it wasn't necessary to bleach the jean...if you didn't care if it blended the colors instead of being pure...whatever color you buy.  So I bought Tulip bright pink and ended up with purple jeans.  I actually LOVE them!!!  Next time, however, I'm thinking bleach and PINK BABY!!!!

Next item on the agenda was to CUT!!!  Since I didn't want to wear these as Bermuda style shorts I tried them on to get the length.  I'd forgotten that these were also either bell bottoms or boot cut jeans which meant I had to contend with a flare in the bottom of the leg that started at an awkward spot for capris.  Once I cut the bottom off I turned them inside out and folded the excess over on the outside of each leg and pinned it down.  By the way, it is very difficult to hold the pant leg with one hand and pin with the other when it's on the outside of your leg.  I'm pretty sure I have a few pin scratches on my legs and perhaps a few small pin pricks as well.  Once they were pinned to my satisfaction I took a regular ink pen and marked where I wanted to sew then pinned it again.  Then I sewed straight stitch right down the pen mark.  To finish off the seam I wide zigzagged the edge connecting it to the original seam up at the top of the leg.  I left about a 4" opening at the bottom of each leg because I wanted to add a bit of lace peeking out at the bottom.  I cut off all the excess material at this point, then I zigzagged the raw edge of the opening and the bottom cut for the hem.  I turned the opening edges under to the wrong side in a V shape and straight stitched it to give it a clean edge.  I hemmed the bottom about 3/4ths of an inch and finished it with a straight stitch.  Then I added the piece of lace on both legs and sewed it into the V with a straight stitch. 

I took absolutely NO pictures of the process...I was a horrible blogger this time, but I just wanted to get this process done and put my new capris on!!!  It was a very simple process and only took me about 2 hours (cause I'm slow and a perfectionist).  Here's how they turned out.  Hopefully you can see the purple in these pictures.  It doesn't seem to come across quite as purple as they are in person. 






And see...I'm even wearing PURPLE SOCKS!!!  I'm so coordinated today!

These are going to be so much fun this summer!!!  Now I can't wait to try dying some more jean!

Till next time...


Jennifer
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Sunday, July 21, 2013

Something fun for my Birthday Girl!!!

My poor daughter!!!  Her birthday is tomorrow and she will be the "BIG 10"!  So I planned a pool get-together with our neighborhood friends, a few more of just her friends and my parents came from out of town...but what do we wake up to...RAIN!!!

Buckets and buckets of RAIN!!!

We bumped the party back 2 hours since it was going to be out of the area at the time, but alas...the pool was closed!  Total bummer...there were tears, it was sad!!!

So to help fill her day mom and I headed off to Michaels and bought a project for her: a purple shirt and a rhinestone iron-on owl.  Combine that with some glitter iron-on vinyl I had in my craft stores and we had a birthday project to bring a smile to a disappointed girl.  Oh...and while we were at it I put together a shirt for me I'd designed on the Silhouette Cameo.

Here's what we came up with...


We took her owl then came up with a cute "Owlie" saying to go with it.  She ended up loving my idea of "Whoo Cares?" and the Baby Kruffy font was PERFECT for this project.  I typed it all out and sized it for her shirt then welded each word together...voila!  Oh, and I learned a secret about this vinyl...here's the scoop.

I purchased this glitter iron-on vinyl from Expression Vinyl.  Here's the link straight to the heat transfer vinyl and the color is "Blush".  It doesn't come with instructions (and if there are any on the website well I didn't look...so no pointing it out...I like to live dangerously.  Ok, I just looked and it would have saved me some hassle.  Ok, humbling moment...) so I winged it!  I messed up, at least on the one below.  I ended up cutting it from the glossy, plastic covered side.  I cut through the whole thing, then I wondered "How in the world am I going to transfer and iron this on my shirt properly?"  (Yes, it pays to pay attention...lesson learned...anyway)  When I got the owl I realized that the way it was applied was a hint how to apply the glitter vinyl.  So I turned the vinyl over on my cutting mat, mirrored the image, kiss cut it, weeded away the extra vinyl, then applied it with the sticky plastic it came with.  (Ok, you can say it now..."DUH!!!"  Live and learn, Baby, live and learn.)  The first cut was not wasted, however; I took the plastic from the second cut and picked the first one up off my cutting mat with it then applied it to my shirt that way.  I then turned the shirts inside out and ironed them.  It worked perfect.  My daughter's was much easier than mine since I did it right the first time...


...but I LOVE how mine turned out!!!  I purchased the black flocked piece for Oklahoma from Hobby Lobby.  It was only $2.99 for a piece of iron-on flocked vinyl that was 9.25" x 5.5" of cutting surface.  The remaining is the same glitter heat transfer vinyl.  The little heart over our city was a test cut that my mom suggested I insert as a last minute idea.  It's perfect!

So, all eyes are dry, hearts are happy and the Birthday Girl has a pretty, new shirt.  Happy 10th birthday, Chrissy Girl!!!

Love you from Mom and Nana!!!

She's one of my ultimate treasures!


Jennifer
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Tuesday, August 21, 2012

A T-Shirt Makeover X 2!!!

I love our church!!!  T-Shirts and jeans are the outfits of choice most of the time, and since that's the case they give out or sell T-Shirts for all kinds of occasions.  And they're very inexpensive.  Most of the time we have to pay $5 per T-Shirt and that's any size, so we have a LOT of church T-Shirts.  Inevitably when wearing a T-Shirt to church you end up being twins, triplets, quads...you get the point.  And they're unisex and I like to feminize mine.  So that's what I did...on T-Shirt #1

T-Shirt #1
 Another thing I love is the music we play.  It is very contemporary and loud...apologetically!!!  One of my favorite songs is "Manifesto" by The City Harmonic.  We had a chance to see them at a 4th of July celebration in our city and they had a T-Shirt that had the lyrics to that song...score!!!  Problem was...their largest size was much to small for me, but I wanted the shirt sooo bad!  So I bought it with grand plans to expand the shirt to fit me...T-Shirt #2!

T-Shirt #2
So back to T-Shirt #1...I decided I wanted to frilly up the sleeves.  So I chopped off the edges and ruffled them up by zigzag stitching the edges.



Then I wanted to open up the neckline and add something girlish to it.  It's not the easiest thing to open up a neckline without cutting too much or letting it stretch too much.  To keep it from stretching I added a binding I made of left over t-shirt material from another project.







I then top stitched it down to keep it from rolling to the front of the shirt.  That's the way it stayed for a couple of weeks while I decided what Pinterest-y way I wanted to dress up the front. 

I decided to use some black tulle and cut out a bunch of circles.  I wanted 3 circles for every little flower or puff on the front of the shirt.  I wasn't sure how many I needed, so I cut a lot.  I folded the tulle over accordion-style a bit larger than the circle I was going to use as a template.  Then I cut a bunch at one time.




Then I took 3 at a time and folded them up in thirds...kinda...I didn't really want them each perfect.  I wanted them different and not cookie cutter shape looking.  Then I hand stitched the ends of the piece and then stitched it to the edge of the neckline. 




I ended up with 13 poofs on one side and 13 on the other side.  I didn't do the whole neckline because I didn't want it to be scratchy on my neck and honestly it didn't need to go all the way around anyway.



Now my T-Shirt will be a one-of-a-kind and very much ME!

Then there's T-Shirt #2.

This is honestly one of the softest, most comfortable t-shirts I've ever owned and so to enlarge it I had to be careful what kind of fabric I put with it.  I've been working with a screen printing company closely for our PTSA so I decided to see if I could order another shirt the exact same brand as this t-shirt.  Thankfully he was able to get one, and in the same size as the one I bought...less altering!!!

To start with I measured the t-shirt I wanted to alter with a t-shirt that I knew fit me the way I liked to determine how much I really needed to add.  Then I took the blank t-shirt, marked and cut the sides and arm holes at the seams using the measurements from the other t-shirt.







Next I had to remove the seam from the original t-shirt.  I started by ripping it out, but soon decided that would take me WAYYYY too long!!!  So I just cut it out...very carefully!!!  I'm enlarging this thing, I don't need to cut out extra!  That would be very foolish.  So I cut the seam slowly right along the stitch line.



Once it was opened up I matched the extension right sides together with the original t-shirt.  It wasn't just as easy as lay it down and it matches up...when is it ever!  I had to ease things in especially in the chest and underarm area.  AND...the edge of the sleeves didn't match up.  Ok, did I tell you I've never enlarged a t-shirt before?  This is learning as you go at it's finest.  I'll explain how I fixed that in a minute.  Once I matched up the edge...one at a time mind you...I stitched them carefully using about a 1/2 inch seam. 


I repeated that with all 4 seams then used a zigzag stitch to "serge" together the seam allowance since I don't own a serger!!!  Then I cut off the excess sleeve and the cuff of the original sleeve.  I used the same zigzag method to finish off the sleeves that I did with the black t-shirt.

The last thing I wanted to change was the neckline (again...I am not a fan of the tight t-shirt necklines that come standard in unisex t's).  I cut off the collar right along the stitching just to get that cuff piece off.  I stitched it with a straight stitch about a 1/3 inch in to keep it from stretching too much.  Then I added a white piece of tulle and a piece of blue t-shirt fabric about an inch wide each and left the edges raw.  I stitched them together straight down the middle and then attached them to the raw neckline of the t-shirt about 1/2 inch in from the edge. 




Now I can wear my T-Shirt I love without it being too small!!!  It worked out great, not perfect, but good enough for me!


I can't wait to find some other ideas for T-Shirts since I know I will end up with another 2 or 3 church shirts by the end of the year.  Another reason I love Pinterest and blogging!!!  It's such a great way to get ideas and turn my Pieces into Treasures!!!
 

UPDATE:

I'm wearing the T-Shirt #2 today and had to change the collar.  I'd added the tulle and it was horribly itchy...completely driving me crazy (NO COMMENTS NEEDED ON THAT STATEMENT!).  So I ripped off the previous collar gently and grabbed my extra shirt leftovers to make something new...and SOFT!  I cut 4 strips out of the body of the extra about 2" wide, stitched them together to make one long strip then basted them down the middle.  Then I gathered them all up tight.
 
 
To prep the shirt I zigzagged around the edge of the t-shirt at the collar before adding the ruffle.
 
 
I then stretched the gathered strips out to fit around the t-shirt collar, spread the gathers out evenly and pinned it down.  Then I zigzagged stitched through the center of the strip attaching it to the shirt.  Using the zigzag vs. a straight stitch I kept the stretchability of the neck of the shirt.  I was lacking that with the previous alteration and since I had to change it anyway...can't have an itchy neck...I went with zigzag over the straight stitch.  Trust me, it's much more comfortable!!!
 

 
 




Jennifer

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