I snatched up these striped pajama pants at a bag sale yesterday...they set me back a whole $.27. That's a rounded number as the actual price breakdown carried the digit out several more places, but for our purposes, they were just over a quarter. Now, the problem with these is that they are size XS (which I am not) and absolutely wouldn't work as they were. But there's a pretty simple solution...and this process works with many kinds of pants! (Jeans, slacks...even sweatpants)
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| Love me some stripes!!! |
I'm going to make a skirt, so I started by cutting out the inseam (you may want to unpick the seams rather than cut them out if you're worried about having enough fabric to reach around, but I had plenty and am lazy). I then put on my would-be skirt and pinned the front and back where new seams would be sewn.
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| It's hard to pin on your backside!!! I need a dress form, asap! |
Next, I ran the front and back through my machine, trimmed off the excess fabric and overlocked the raw edges. Now, this fabric is a polyblend and the new skirt was a really weird length on me (ankle-length is not my thang!) so I gave it a chop...or three ;). I kept trying it on and not being satisfied, but I finally figured it out.
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| Hmm, maybe this length, no shorter...ok, a bit shorter! |
Final step was to overlock the raw bottom edge and hem it up! Oh, and press the hem and new seams (makes a major difference, folks). And I've got myself a hi-low stripy skirt :).
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| No, I did NOT clean up my sewing space, but it IS on my list...that counts, right? |
I like how this came out and the high-waist makes it much more flattering on me, imo. One little quarter, and about half an hour is all it took.
Long post...cause here comes another one! Well, I had cut off so many scraps from my skirt that I had to do something with at least part of them right away. I've had this floral maxi dress for a while now and haven't been wearing it because it is too clingy on my waist and the thin fabric is a bit unforgiving. So I'd brought it out thinking I'd make it into a maxi skirt but had no wide elastic for a waist band. In comes a scrap of striped stretch fabric...
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| Stripes, meet Floral ;) |
I took the widest section of the bottom of the skirt, folded it over, cutting straight across the top and along one end to create a yoga-style waistband. I sewed up the side (having measured the width I wanted) and set this aside.
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| Cut, cut, and sew! |
Next, I folded over the top of my dress where I'd already marked it to be cut, and made the chop.
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| 1...now 2! |
Then, I put my waistband wrong side on the outside (right side) of my newly cut waistline and using an overlock stitch, sewed the two together stretching the striped fabric as I went. It was cut smaller than the floral so that it'd create a snug (but not too tight) waistband.
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| Finally getting the hang of these overlocking stitches on my sewing machine! |
Folded over, here is how my stripes-meets-floral maxi skirt looks. Oh, and I even have the cropped top of my dress to play with for later ;).
This was incredibly easy...but that's kinda what I needed in the effort to get my sewing mojo back. And hopefully I have! Here's the final before & after shots:
So, what do you think? I'd love to know what you would have made with each of these pieces! Sometimes I go with the most obvious choice, out of habit I'm sure, but maybe getting a different perspective could help me broaden my vision for refashion possibilities! Thanks for your patience as I enjoy the beautiful weather with my family...but I've missed sewing and posting and hearing from you all! Happy Refashioning :)
Peace,
Andrea
