chop tops

The more refashioning I'm doing, the pickier I'm getting about my clothes.  Honestly, I was sort of hoping it would go the other way.  But now that I know how tailor-made clothes fit, it's really hard to wear something that just sort-of works.  I keep staring in my closet and bemoaning, "I have nothing to wear!"  And then I reply back to myself, "How do you have nothing to wear when you sew something new for yourself at least once a week?  What are you doing with all your new clothes??"  It's like a mother and daughter are arguing inside my head, yikes.

I took a close look at my closet and cleared out a lot of clothes I haven't worn in a long time.  No more--"I love that dress....I'll wear it next summer!"  If I hadn't worn it in a year, it was headed to the chopping block.  Literally.  I chopped.

The first dress I chopped was from my wedding shower.  I couldn't bear to part with it, but it was see-through and made of cream lace.  You really can't wear that to anything other than your own bridal shower without looking like a bride at someone else's party.  And I HATE wearing those skintight squeezy things that someone decided should replace normal slips.  Who ever thought up that torture??

The other dress was way too short.  I somehow had the idea to wear it to a wedding for a coworker last summer.  A ridiculously short dress to a daytime wedding with all of my colleagues.  I can really be brilliant sometimes...  To give you an indication of how short it was, I only cut off about eight inches to make it into a shirt.  Also, for the record, my mother did teach me not to wear white to someone else's wedding, but you can see the blue, right?!

Here we go!  Put on your dress and mark a good length for a shirt.  Then add three inches because you are invariably judging it too short and you'll never wear a too-short shirt (also you need extra material for your hem).  Take it off, lie it straight, and CHOP.  It feels so good, doesn't it??



All that's left is to hem!  For my hems, I usually fold the fabric twice, about 1/4 inch each time, iron it flat, and put in a straight stitch.  If you cut it too short, like most of the things I do, cut it with your pinking shears and then use a zig-zag stitch to prevent fraying.

I've worn both of these shirts twice already since I made them!  It makes me feel so much better that they aren't sitting in the back of my closet with my beanie baby collection anymore. (Lies, my beanie baby collection is in the attic.)

ladylike lace skirt

I found this lacy shirt at my local Goodwill Clearance Center on half-off day--that's $0.65 per pound.  I love finding lightweight pieces like this and dropping them into my bin thinking, "This probably only costs $0.10!"

I liked it as a shirt, but I am queen of lacy shirts, and I wanted the challenge, so I decided it needed to become a skirt.  The only problem is that it is totally see-through and I've never made a lining before.

Enter these satin pajamas.  They felt delicious.  And again, I was certain they would only be $0.10 since it was half-off day.  At the time I threw them into my bin I had no idea what they would be, but today they were reincarnated into the lining.

I started by ripping all of the seams out of the pajamas to separate and open up the legs.  Then I hacked off the bottom portion of the shirt right under the armpits.  (I will definitely be making that top into something soon!).

I turned the bottom half of the shirt inside out and sandwiched it with the fabric from a pajama pant leg on either side, with the right sides facing together.  Then I pinned down the sides to fit my curves.  This is when I had a stroke of logic, unpinned the pieces and hemmed the bottom of the satin fabric (the bottom of my lace was already hemmed because it was the bottom piece of the shirt).  Then I repinned, tried it on, adjusted my pins, and sewed a seam up the sides.

 Just to be extra safe, I sewed an extra zigzag stitch outside my straight seam, then cut the extra fabric with my pinking shears.  I did the same thing with the extra fabric at the top of the skirt.

I needed to add a waistband to my skirt, but this was all I had left from my pajama pants.  I had to cut and sew three strips together to make a piece of bias tape for the waistband.

Next I pinned and sewed the satin pajama bias tape over the top of the skirt, leaving a small opening in the back.  I took some elastic from another skirt I fixed up and threaded it through the tube I created with the bias tape.  The last step is to sew the elastic together and the open pieces of the bias tape together.  And VOILA!