Mens Dress Trousers Transform to High Waisted A-line Skirt

I recently refashioned a skirt into a crop top and while I loved the outcome, I felt like it needed a high waisted A-line skirt to carry the look.  I had the perfect pair of mens grey dress trousers.  They had a nice stretch and the color was a good match.

Here are the pants on to get an idea of size.

I turned the pants inside out and cut out all of the lining in the legs.

I decided to use a new pattern I haven't tried yet.  New Look 6053.  I used pattern A.

I pinned the pattern to the leg of the pant and cut as best I could.  I definitely had to alter the pattern a bit by narrowing it near the hem.  I added a vent to both sides of the skirt to compensate for this.

I cut the facing for the waist band from what remained of the pants.

Sewed it all together and adjusted the fit a few times to make it just right (or close enough, anyway).  

Here is the finished skirt with the top I recently refashioned.

It has a little side zipper.

The center front and back have a seam line running down them from the side seam of the pant leg, but luckily it is very hard to see.

Little side vent at the bottom of the skirt to make for easy movement.  

I just need to throw on a pair of cool black tights and a nice jacket and we are good to go!

The skirt is surprisingly comfy and easy to move in.  I will definitely do another refashion like this in the future if I get my hands on a nice pair of trousers.  It's possible I may even have a black pair waiting in my refashion pile.  

Wouldn't that be perfect?  

I bet you'll hear about it if I do!

Pretty Little Strip of Fabric Becomes a Funky 70's Tube Top

I was given this cool strip of knit fabric by my mother-in-law.  I love the cool 70's vibe it has.  I cut it before I took a picture of it, but it was one long, thin strip.  There wasn't much I could do with it, but since crop tops were on my mind from my recent refashion, I knew exactly what to do.

First I cut the strip in to four equal size panels.

I used my serger to combine two panels together, right sides out, wrong sides together.

Then I sewed the two new pieces together.  I tapered the sides in as I moved down toward the waist.  I folded the bottom up once and hemmed it.  The top I folded over twice and hemmed it.

Finished top

I plan on wearing it as more of an undershirt, like this, than by itself.  

It was a fun way to use a little piece of fabric.  Now can add a little color under my long button up shirts in the fall.  

A Few New Little Things Up On Etsy

I just finished a new batch of little bags and got them listed on Etsy for sale.  I thought I would share them with you.

I have been working on creating things with whatever fabric I have in my giant stash.  I had my products in a few stores for a while and it was tough going with the economy.  Plus, it was hard on me giving away a percentage of the profit from my sale to the owners because as it is I am not really "making" any money.  Anyone who sews knows that a tremendous amount of work goes into something even as little as a coin purse.  My time can never really be compensated for, so I finally decided to pull my stuff from the stores and focus on selling things through Etsy myself.  Etsy, of course, has it's fee's, too, but at least this way I'm in control of my inventory and I'm giving away a much smaller percentage of my so called "profit".  If there is such a thing ;)

Anyway, when I was in stores they were pushing me to make more small grab items for the counter, since we were having trouble moving the larger, higher priced purses and bags.  Unfortunately, with the busy life I lead as a single stay at home mother, I never really found the time to sew a bunch together.  Finally, with my youngest in first grade for a full 6 hours, I have managed to get to sewing some of these little bags together.  

Here is a look at all the new little things I have available, plus there are many more products in my Etsy Shop.  

These items would make great gifts for teachers, friends, the hard to buy for teen girls, or anyone that has spare change.  

Blue Floral Wristlet

I have 3 of these wristlets available (all listed separately).  They are larger than my previous design to accommodate for the new smart phone sizes.  It has a wider base and these are lined with fleece for extra padding.

Peace Sign Zipper Pouch

I really want to keep this little pouch.  It's just so cute!  It's a little wider than my regular coin purses, so it has a little more versatility.  It could easily fit ID cards, money, and small cosmetics.

Peace Sign and Grey/Pink Suiting Coin Purses

I listed these little coin purses together to save myself the listing fee.  I have 6 of the grey suiting with pink lining available and 2 of the colorful peace sign coin purses available.

These are great for the kids lunch money, spare change, laundry money (how I use mine!), or even storing your guitar picks, iShuffle, headphones, etc.

Grey/Pink Suiting Coin Purses

These coin purses are a little taller than the ones above.  You could fit an ID card in there along with your money.  These have a fun pink lining and pink zipper to match.

Ear Bud/Blue Tooth/Coin Purse Key Chain Zipper Pouch

These are super cute, fun little zipper pouches.  They fit on your key chain and are meant to hold your earbuds, so they don't get all tangled up in your purse.  You can also store your blue tooth in it, an iShuffle fits in, so you can wear it around your belt loop on your walk, you can carry your guitar picks in them if you are a rock star ;), or you can carry spare change/money.  I think these are great little gifts for a teacher.  I have the 3 different fabric styles below available.

Feel free to share this with your friends.  

Every purchase made helps my family and improves our lives.  It is my dream to stay home and raise my children.  I can't put into words how important that is to me, my spirit, and my life.  It drives me to continue to use my passion and skills for sewing.  It pushes me to be creative and find ways to make money with my skills, so I can continue to live my dream.  

I love my kids, I love sewing, and I hope you find something I made that you will love, too.  

Thank you for supporting me, my passions, and my dreams.  

Sticky Genius

Large Skirt Transforms To Little Crop Top

I am knee deep in creating some new inventory for my Etsy Shop and am busy working to fill a large pencil case order, but somehow I still found time to squeeze in a quick refashion.  

I am horribly selfish with my sewing skills.  It's all about me, people! ;)

  I figure I probably appreciate my skills the most, so why not spoil myself :).  

I bought this skirt from one of my favorite shops that was going out of business.  I had bought one just like it in a different color and a size smaller a while back and I love it.  This one was a large, but I bought it anyway because it was on super clearance and well .... I kinda went a little grabby nuts in the store since I knew it was my last chance to shop there.  So far this skirt hasn't made it into my wardrobe.  It's just a bit to large and makes me look bulky in my already bulky backside.  

Here it is before.

To the cutting floor it goes!

Since I do love the other skirt so much I decided to trace a pattern for the pieces, so I can make more in the future in a smaller size.  Bonus!  I'll have to find something stretchy to refashion with this pattern.

I already had a vision in mind for this refashion.  I have a thing for crop tops.  I am secretly excited that they are coming back into style.  I know it may not be appropriate for a 37 year old mother of two to be running around town with her belly ring hanging out ... but hey ... it's L.A.  Anything goes in this crazy town.  At least, that's what I tell myself.  (Although, I don't think I will be doing school drop off and pick up in this new shirt.)  I love the new trend of coupling a crop top with a high waisted skirt or pair of pants.  Here are some cute crop tops in action in the fashion world:

I want to try to do a more fitted crop top next like the ones above and below.  Maybe not quite as bra looking as the top ones, but I like the fitted look, like the one below.  I'm thinking I could easily use a bodice pattern from one of my dress patterns and just hem it across the bottom instead of adding a skirt to it.

I love the look of a high waisted skirt with a crop top.

This print is just too cute!  I want that outfit.  I may have to use this as inspiration.  If I can find the right fabric I may try to reproduce it. I don't know if I can pull this look off, though.  Might be a bit too young for me.  

The high waisted a-line skirt with the crop top is my favorite.  My goal is to make myself a high waisted a-line skirt in grey to go with my new crop top.  Possibly another refashion in the near future????

Hmmmm.... we will see.

And here is the finished top! 

I didn't really document the process, but basically I seam ripped apart the whole skirt leaving the hem in place along the bottom.  I had to rip it open at the side seams a little when I took it in and then hemmed the sides back up.  I used the front and back waist band for the shoulder straps and hemmed the top of the shirt with a double fold hem (bottom was single fold).

It's super comfy!  I have a cute knit sweater I can wear over it and some high waisted black pants I can wear with it now, until I make a skirt.  It looks ok with this jersey skirt for a super casual look, but I would probably wear it with a knit sweater or over shirt.  

Summer may be gone, but it lives on in my mind and in my wardrobe.  What can I say, I'm just a Southern California girl.

How Simple Shirts Were Transformed into Octo-Dress

My neighbor is awesome.

Let's just start there.

He gives me tons of clothing, old and new, to work with.

Have I told how much I love free fabric?

Well ...

I DO!

Here is my pile of shirts I plan to work with to bring my design idea to life.

Here is my design idea.  I love sea creatures.  Octopus is high on my favorite list.  I really want to get an octopus tattoo on my arm.  This will have to suffice for now.

Octo-Dress Sketch:

Here is the pattern I will be working with.  I am using Pattern B.

I have worked with this pattern before with this dress.  The totally not me dress.  I struggled with this pattern the first time.  It is very time consuming and it requires a lot of fabric.  I'm still not a huge fan of the pattern.  I don't know if I will attempt another dress from it again.  I'm much happier with how this dress came out versus the previous one I linked.

I started by cutting out the midriff panel (outer fabric) from the blue.

Since I didn't have much blue, I used the white for the two (yes TWO) layers of lining.  So much darn lining in this dress!  I saved the little guitar image because I want to use it in another refashion someday.

Then I cut the rest of the pattern from all my white shirts.  Some of the shirts were heavier than others.  I tried to keep the heavy fabric on the outside and the lighter on the lining.  

I had to use a lighter weight shirts for the skirt because I had more of those than heavy weight fabric shirts and I needed them to match.

I was worried it would be see through, since there is no lining in the skirt (weird!  I added skirt lining to the other dress I made in this pattern).  It doesn't seem to be an issue, though.  Phew!

Now all my pieces are cut.  Time to start creating my screen print design.  

I had to get creative.  I knew I wanted to use nerf gun bullets dipped in Speedball screen printing ink, but I realized I would need to have a larger tentacle to give it the effect of an octopus arm wrapping around me.  It would need to go from big tentacles to small tentacles.

I used this little tool to carve out a tentacle from a wine cork.  Amazingly, it worked!

I used a foam block underneath my fabric to give it an even print and protect my work surface.

Nerf bullet in action.  I'm digging the effect.

You can see the wine cork print versus the nerf gun print here.  This was just a practice piece to make sure I could pull the effect off before I went for the real deal.

A couple finished pieces drying by the window.

I did each piece individually after being cut into their pattern pieces, so I had control over how the design would look on my body.  I wanted it to look like an octopus had wrapped it's arms around me in various areas.  Around the bust, leg, back, etc.

Here is the finished product.  It took a little tweaking to get the fit right.  

Overall, I am happy with how it came out.  I really like creating a print.  It's fun to have something totally unique.

I'm not totally happy with the back.  I had the same issue with the other dress.  I cut the zipper shorter, so it ended at the base of the midriff.  I think all the lining on top is heavy and the skirt is so light it makes the zipper do weird things.  It looks a bit better now that I cut it, but I still feel like it wants to lean to the side and pucker at the bottom.  Grrr. 

I tried my hardest to line up the side tentacles.  Close enough.

My favorite is the bodice.

I wish the blue shirt was a little more royal blue to match the ink, but I wanted to work with what material I had.  I think it still works?

And the bunchy back :(.  Does it look terrible?  

Overall I am very happy with my creation.  It might have been more successful had I chose a better pattern.  I'm glad I gave that pattern one more shot, though.  

Opinions?  

Is this wearable?

Too artsy crafty?

Cute?

Cool?

Weird?

Ugly?

or Octo-Awesome?