Maternity Skirt

I know I said I would do this yesterday, but seriously, if you had seen the list of things I accomplished yesterday, and knew what time I finally came home, you would totally understand.  When you live in a small town 1 hour away from the nearest large city, you plan your trips and then go.  Hit every store and place possible, visit one or two friends while there, and listen to 3 cds of the cd book.  Good times.

So anyway.  S is finally pregnant after trying for nearly three years.  October would have been the official 3 year mark.  She's 18 weeks along and just found out last week that IT'S A GIRL!!! I'm so excited.  There are so many adorable things to make for girls.  Boys have cute things too, don't get me wrong, but the preponderance of ideas is shifted to the girls side.  (BTW, there is NO question this baby is a girl, when it came time for the tech to "look at the plumbing" she obligingly rolled over, flipped her legs in the "air" to proclaim, LOOK ma, no penis!!)  S's sister-in-law's sister just had a baby last December and went from a size 12 to an 8 after the birth (no fair).  So she passed some new jeans on to S that she had never worn.  But now she has baby belly, and needed maternity bands.

In swoops Homemade by Jill's Jeans to Maternity Skirt Refashion.  Very simple, easy to follow tutorial.
Take regular ol' normal jeans, preferably wide leg, as I discovered these were originally skinny oops.

Remove the waistband and take out the inner leg seams.  (No pic, sorry.  Was listening to a book-on-cd while working this portion of the project, so sorta got distracted)

Make sure your tension is correct on your sewing machine for jeans.  This WILL take a while.  Unless you've been hemming jeans recently and know the correct tension off the top of your head, which I don't. It's best to practice the tension stitches on a piece of the exact jean you will be sewing, so I cut off a portion of the leg (hey, it's gonna be a skirt, so I was gonna cut the legs off anyway, right?)  My sample stitches ended up looking like this masterpiece of hot mess.  Finally got it right though! (Save this scrap piece.  You can use it as stuffing for large stuffed pieces, like dog pillows/toys)

Sew inner legs together.  (No pic, same excuse as before)

Begin following directions for the maternity band. Know that S wears a size medium top, and since Jill says an old shirt that has shrunk in the wash, use one of my own shirts to measure the jersey material I got in lieu of t-shirts since it was actually cheaper.  Take skirt and band to S to have her try it on before finishing it.

Catastrophe.  The skirt fits.  Thank goodness.  But the maternity band will NOT go past her thighs.  Not because they are huge, they're not, but because either my shirt has really shrunk, or I messed up somewhere.  Except now I have no more jersey material, and have to go to Wally world to buy a t-shirt.  Like I should have done in the first place. 

This time the band fits.  It fits me, so it will fit her.  (my legs are a bit bigger than hers, so that's a good judge)

Now time to bite off more than I can reasonably chew at one time.  A few weeks ago, Crafterhours held a skirt contest, and the winning straight skirt was so adorable I knew I had to do the same thing to this skirt refashion.  Of course, I don't have an awesome sheet like that in my house, so off I traipse to the Goodwill.  Found a sheet that works just as well.  Cut all the flowers out, iron the fusible stuff to them, then iron them on to the skirt in a nice arrangement.  (Again, no pic.  What was I thinking!?!?)

Begin zig-zagging around all the pretty flowers.  Some more.  And some more.   And crap.....I ran out of thread.  Off to the store....my color has been discontinued.  Did you know they discontinued sewing thread colors!?!?! I certainly did not.  Try desperately to match the color, but no.  Nothing available is even close to the same shade.  Give up, buy two spools of a thread that will work.  Begin again.   I lost track of how many times I had to wind the bobbin.  Two nights later.....ta da!!

I did not use the sparkly thread.  Wanted to. Just not sure how.  As in, not sure if I should use the sparkly in the bobbin as well, larger/smaller stitches, etc.  Plus, the skirt is super cute as is. 

Now, yes.  I do have a pic of S trying on her new skirt.  She loves it, by the way.  It's just on my phone.  Which I left at work today.  An hour away from home.  And when did I discover I had left my phone?  You got it! When I pulled in front of my house!!! S says the band is a bit loose right now, but I'm okay with that.  First, this is the very first time I have ever sewn something like this without a pattern.  Secondly, she's only 18 weeks.  She still has at least 2-3 months worth of growing to wear this skirt in, if not four here in Tennessee.  That band should be nice and snug by October.  Baby due in January. By then (Oct) I should have the regular jeans refashioned, no cutesy flowers. 

Refashion Weekend

This weekend the hubs, the pup, and I went home to my mom's in Chattanooga. For a weekend trip, this requires a lot of packing, and it's mostly dog stuff. I have come to the conclusion that traveling with a pet is just like traveling with an infant: you practically have to pack up the nursery in order to have all you will need! I have also been suffering the ill effects of spring in the South with a sinus infection, so this weekend I have very little planned. However, my favorite quilt shop is just outside of Chattanooga, and I haven't been there in more than 5 years (yes, that's how long it's been since I worked on any quilts...sad, huh?) So, I AM going.

Sew-Bee-It is the cutest little quilt shop I've ever seen. It doesn't have the large selection of fabrics and supplies of some I've seen, or even a large variety in what they do have (I still LOVE them, though), but it is too cute. I went with another crafter, who has never quilted, and I almost had her converted before we left. The shop is so cozy and sweet, has beautiful quilts displayed, and the workers there are so friendly. And I did find some great prints for another project swap I am doing (to be discussed at a later date.) The odd thing was that after going to two separate quilting shops, I found the quilting motif stencil at.....Hobby Lobby. Hmm.

After enjoying a relaxing evening fingering beautiful fabrics and fighting the urge to buy all in sight, I returned to mom's to begin working on the refashioning I had brought along. I opened the door to her sewing room.....and almost died. It is quite obvious she hasn't worked in there for months, because it's too disastrous. Now, I know that craft/sewing rooms are supposed to be organized chaos, but there's no organization here. So, as part of my "refashioning" project, I refashioned mom's sewing room. Moved the ironing board closer to the sewing table, organized and sorted her projects and supplies, and soon had a room I could work in.

So using a tutorial from here, I took several shirts that are too small for me right now, and I made them fit. (No, I'm not pregnant. I have lost 10 pounds though, so soon, that will no longer be a question to consider!) One design, three different ways, three new shirts to wear. The short sleeved white one was basic, according to the tutorial post. The long sleeved one made me realize that I needed to add some width to the sleeves, plus it had a mark on it that wouldn't wash out: applique to the rescue. And the yellow tank still basically fit, I just don't really wear it, but now I can! And so, since the fabric for the white shirts came from horrible crops from Goodwill, three new shirts (from my own collection) for less than $10! Ha!

Laser-cut tank Recreation

In my last post I mentioned that I would be participating in a UFO challenge for the next few months as I attempt to complete projects, and that the number drawn for this month had me working on Clothing Refashion. The basic idea here is taking clothes that you already have, whether too small, too big, out of fashion, tacky, great fabric but would never actually wear in present form, or any of these purchased at Goodwill, and turn it into something new. Working at a retail store gives me great ideas, and clothes that I can't quite fit to change.

The tank in question that I want has a laser cut design out of a cooridinating fabric as the back of the shirt. Retails for $19.50. I got the tank at a resale shop for $3, and the fabric from a Goodwill skirt for $3 also. After cutting the seams out of the skirt, I placed a piece of iron-on fusible interfacing against the back of the tank to determine the size of the back to cut. I drew a rough shape on one side of the design, then folded in half (after having measured the tank, as well to figure out the midpoint of it) and traced the design on the other half. Then cut, place on wrong side of skirt fabric, and steam iron it on.

Now for the creative part! Using your imagination, create an open-weave pattern in pencil/pen on the interfacing. You only need to draw on one half (I cut out the first half of the design, folded it back in half, and traced around the cut-outs onto the second half.)I made sure the center was pretty close to the original pattern, but since I enlarged my backing piece due to the need to have a larger back, I had to improvise the extension of the pattern from the center. Using my exacto knife to cut a slit in each drawn half, I pulled out my small craft scissors (blade 1") to cut the small details out. To keep the design centered and even, once I had the right side all cut, fold in half again, trace through the holes, and repeat.

Now you want to make sure that your fabric won't completely unravel, stretc and separate in the wash. Using a contrasting thread color (I actually used two, one layered on top of the other), I free-motion stitched between all of the cuts, trying to maintain some semblence of a pattern. Now, I will admit, I lost the idea of the pattern about two rounds into this thing, but I still think it looks really cool.  The final step is to sew the cut-out to the tank at the shoulders and waistline where you previously cut the back off. I wore the tank to work that night, and everybody loved it, and wanted to know where I got it. They couldn't believe I had made it: it looks just like the one in the store, but it's my color, and my pattern (my size too!) Remember, the store is a juniors store, so it's not that I'm fat, just regular sized. I have hips and girls, and they don't always fit into the sizes at the store. One recreation down, several more to go....

***UPDATE***
My shirt has frayed a bit in the wash, but I think it's fantastic! It really somehow adds to the impact of the design. And if you don' believe me, be the judge yourself!

Blog Inspiration

A little background into this story. I work at a junior's retail store about once a week. I am not a junior, nor am I truly junior sized. I am working on this, and have lost 4 pounds (this will NOT be a UFO!), but still, most of these clothes are not designed to fit on more average sized women. So I have been reading other blogs, and have re-styled some of my clothes to fit me, and they are super cute. And many of the girls there therefore know I am a "craft"-y person.

So, I get to work yesterday, and H says, "I have a shirt that I want you to change for me." Okay. She is currently fighting with said boyfriend, and actually would not normally wear a shirt that so blatantly declared "I have a boyfriend!". She suggests I simply draw an "X" across the heart with a Sharpie marker. Cute idea, huh? Well, without the Sharpie part, at least. "I can do that," I reply. "But rather than Sharpie, I was just reading a blog that had a tutorial on making your own screen printing, which would make it look more like the shirt came that way!"

I got my garage sale sign, and other assorted supplies from my local craft store, and began work creating the "X". Since the writing on the shirt looks painted, I decided to go with a graffiti look, and after searching the web for graffiti, and how to make it look right, I opened Paint on the computer and created this:

A few steps later, (see directions on earlier link, it's really actually easy!), and I was ready to test. Looked around the apartment for scrap fabric I wouldn't mind having a giant "X" on (who has fabric like that? not I!) and settled on my reusable grocery bag. Perfect! Looks great! On to the real thing. Wipe off the excess paint, line the "X" up over the heart, and screen-print! TA-DA!

H is happy, and now L wants me to do this to the same shirt for her, but this time, slash out the "boyfriend", and write in "hubby." What have I gotten myself into?!