Refashion: Travel Friendly Silver Sweatshirt

I used to travel by air for work frequently. There was a particular year when I would be traveling by plane to clients' sites every 3-4 weeks for a 3-4 day stay. I know some business people would travel on the plane with their suit jackets on but that's not for me. I had experienced too many airplane delays, sitting at the boarding zone for hours, sitting inside a stationary boiling hot plane for hours, cancelled flights, etc. So I always made sure that I was wearing something comfortable for the travels. In the colder months, I would just wear a big comfy sweater or sweatshirt, which felt like having nice blanket on me and helped me to nap on the plane.

This XXL sweatshirt was part of the RTW purchase with the gift card I received for X'mas. It's big, soft, comfy and it has silver threads in it for a bit of glamour! And it only cost $3.97 so I bought 2 of them.

I decided to do a simple refashion to make it less overwhelming on me. I used the usual 'pinch-pin-cut-sew' (PPCS - LOL!) method. I removed the excess fabric from the sleeves and the body. It's still roomy for me but more wearable now.

And since JCrew had reinvented the sweatshirt look, there are so many ways to wear this sweatshirt:

This plain looking sweatshirt has a little unexpected feature: little openings at the cuff for the thumbs to warm my hands in cold weather!

Travel Friendly Versatile Little Black Dress (LBD)

In January, I was searching for ideas for the Most Versatile Little Black Dress for me. One of the criteria of a versatile dress is that it needs to travel well. So I turned to my favourite fabric ponte knit in my stash for this dress. It's based on my go-to Moderate Stretch Knit dress pattern - Butterick 6771. I used it to draft a Faux Wrap Little Black Dress which was very quick to sew:

It has a slightly A-line shape which suits my body. The wraps are sewn to the side seams down to about mid-thigh. So there is no chance that it would blow open in a gust of wind. I made it sleeveless to maximize its versatility.

There are just so many ways to wear this dress. Here are just some examples:

To the Office - with a black belt and Navy blazer:

To a Date/Dinner/Wedding - with a pink pashmina:

For layer in the Fall - Long sleeves shirt, leggings and boots:

Ponte knit is perfect for Travel Packing. It doesn't wrinkle, drapes perfectly, perfect for all seasons, except for the bitterly cold winter. And as a knit it means it's comfortable to wear and one can eat a good size meal in the dress. The faux wrap neckline provides a little more interest than a plain T-shirt dress. So I'm really happy with how this Versatile Little Black Dress has turned out!

Do you have a Travel Friendly Little Black Dress that you keep wearing?

March is 'Travel Friendly' Month

This month's sewing/refashioning theme is Travel Friendly clothes/accessories. Our family travels by car frequently because we have close family/friends living about 700 km away. I'm used to packing the absolute essentials for myself from 4 days to 4 weeks. The kids' stuff takes a lot of space already and in the winter with all the extra gears and layerings, it's even worse. We have done car travel with the kids in every weather conditions imaginable (shower, pouring rain, gusty wind, snow, sleet, whiteout, freezing rain, etc). All our clothes needed to be travel friendly for all occasions - including outdoor sporting activities, and sadly including funerals which we unexpectedly had to attend a couple of years ago.

This month we will have to do the long car travel again. The packing is even more difficult when it's in-between seasons. I already have lots of self-made travel friendly clothes but I would like to add some variety to it. I will also be posting my Travel Packing for this trip later this month.

So have you sewn a Travel Wardrobe for different seasons? Are there any particular Travel Friendly garments that are musts for your trips?

Refashion: A Scarf into a Downton-inspired Dress

I thrifted this silk/rayon devore velvet (cut velvet) scarf last month for $3.99. I just love this type of velvet. It's wide enough so I thought it might make a nice tunic or dress for me. After watching a few episodes of the new season of Downton Abbey, I just wanted to make a 1920's dress!

With such a nice fluid fabric, I figured that I could just sew up the side seams, cut out a hole for the head and that would make a flowy tunic/dress. The fringes of the scarf would have been nice if they weren't all tangled together. I had to cut all the fringes off. I was going to do a narrow hem for the neckline but I'm just too lazy. In the end I just used the rolled hem function on my serger to finish the neckline.

 To style this dress, I already have a nice raspberry long slip in my closet (bought on clearance at Debenhams' 15 years ago for 7 quid!) which would go nicely with this tunic. And I also have self-made jet black semi-precious stone jewellery to adorn this dress. I made a black satin belt with remnant satin blanket edging and then added a thrifted brooch to the belt. So here is the Downton-inspired outfit:

 I showed the outfit to hubby and he said it didn't look too costume-like. So what do you think? Can I go out to dinner with this outfit or does it look like I'm going to a fancy dress party? Do you have any Television/Movie inspired outfits too?

Spring 2014 Pantone Colour Trends - Not for me!

(source: Pantone.com)

I just checked the Pantone Colour Trends for Spring 2014. It's all very pastel-like. I don't actually think I have any fabrics in my stash that are in these colours. I could do some fabric dying but these Pantone Spring colours actually don't look good on me. So I suppose I'll just ignore these 'colour trends' and look for some spring-like fabrics in my own stash to add to my 2014 spring/summer wardrobe.

Final Feb is Red Month project - A Little Red Dress Refashion

It's the 2nd last day of February and I managed to squeeze another red garment to finish off the 'Feb is Red Month'. After all the hardwork on the muslins and nothing to show for it, I was ready to have a project that I can actually wear. And I chose knit - because knits have rarely failed me. I was almost always able to salvage a knit garment even if it didn't fit properly at first.

This is a RTW red ponte knit dress I bought with a gift card. Someone gave me a store gift card for X'mas and I didn't know what to do with it. So I went to the Clearance rack and found a few things. This XL dress was huge on me but it's a Red Ponte knit!! My favourite colour and my favourite kind of knit!! And it only cost $4.97! Don't worry I haven't changed my consumption habit. I'm still Thrift Store girl at heart. This is a rare occasion because of the gift card.

Anyway, I used the knit dress in Butterick 5146 as a base, added cap sleeves and changed the neckline slit. It has a slight a-line which suits me well. I thought the neckline looked a bit bare, so I rummaged through my notions stash and found a faux leather strap and buckle set. I thought it might jazz up the dress a little. So this is how it turned out:

 (oh I forgot to clip the thread ends...busted....)

But wait! That's not all. If I want to wear some elaborate jewelry with this dress, I can wear the dress backwards like this:

I'm really happy with this dress - it's red, it's knit, it's travel friendly, it's versatile for work and play.  I can even layer it with long sleeves tees and leggings for the Fall. It's definitely my favourite Little Red Dress thus far!

Feb Blogger Swap Reveal - So Excited!!!

After seeing the Blogger Swap Reveal posts on the sites of bloggers Miche (Buttons and Birdcages) and Martyna (Spoolish), I eagerly joined the February Blogger Swaps. I was paired up with the Thrift Store Stylist Extraordinaire Katie (Thrift your Heart out). I was soooooo excited when I received her package that my kids thought something was wrong (yes I was acting like a 5 year old all giddy and jumpy!).

I wish I had taken a picture before I unwrapped the little presents because they were all beautifully wrapped and each one attached with a sweet handwritten note card.

I received:
- heart-shaped Valentines candies (just in time for Valentines Day)

- a gold/red polka dot blouse (so sweet and so much refashioning potential - Yes!)
- a Simplicity sewing pattern (a lovely blouse pattern - perhaps I can use it for the polka dot blouse?)

- a 2 pack coaster that have spaces for little photos (how about for the kiddies' photos)

- a blood red lipstick (every girl needs a blood red lipstick!!)

Thanks so much Katie! This has been so much fun!


I had sent a little package to Katie too. You can check it out on her blog: Thrift your heart out.


You can check out the other February Blogger Swaps participants packages too:

Buttons and Birdcages and Aligator Toe

Spoolish and Mrs Fox's Finery & Fancies

Lemonade Runway and Fun Crafty Savy Mom

Dash of Rose and Being Zhenya

Extra Extravagant and That Cold September Night

Almost a Hippy and The Experimental Crafter

My first 2 muslins - A Great learning experience and A Disappointment

I had never made proper muslins before. Almost all the clothes that I had made for myself so far have semi-fitted waists, which meant that I only had to fiddle with fitting the chest, back neckline and arms. I knew from making pants that I have a short front waist and high hips at the back. But I wouldn't have to worry so much about these areas if most of the non-pants clothes I have made were empire waist dresses/tops, loose fitting clothes.

I wanted to make a nice fitted woven sheath dress so  I decided to make proper muslins using the new McCall's 6887 (separate pattern pieces for A/B/C/D cups) and Simplicity 2404 (Amazing fit series with separate cup sizes as well). Both of these dresses are very fitted with fitted waists. It took a lot of adjustments, re cutting, resewing, etc. I don't have any cheap muslin fabrics so I just used my good linen blend and cotton twill fabrics.

It was such a learning experience! They were not wearable muslins, but I learned so much. For example, due to my high back hips, I had to make a sway back adjustment, even though I have a flat seat. Who knew? I thought sway back adjustments are for ladies with nicely rounded bottoms! And then I learned that I had to fold out the neckline because of my barrel upper chest. I carefully transferred all the adjustments onto the paper pattern. Most important of all, I also realized that with my rectangular body, it's best for me to wear slightly A-line dresses with undefined waistlines. That made the exercise of making muslins for the 2 patterns useless in the end.

Now that I had done all the' muslin-ings' and corrected the paper patterns, I'm not so keen on making the actual dresses anymore. It's almost like once the puzzle had been solved, the thrill of discovery was finished. Now I just want to do a muslin on another 'unexplored' pattern in my stash instead of sewing with that same pattern again! Isn't that just a waste of my good fabrics and my time? So although I learned a lot with the 'muslin-ings', I'm also a bit disappointed about it because I spent all this time and nothing to show for it! Oh well!

Refashion: Hot pink self-stitched jacket makeover

Okay, this is not a red garment. But hot pink has a lot of red pigment in it, right? Anyway, I made this Hot pink cotton sweatshirt jacket a few months back. Hubby said it was a bit stumpy on me and I didn't wear it much. It's such a shame because I like the material and the colour. So I thought I could refashion it a little to make it more wearable.

I figured that the bulky sleeves probably make the jacket very stumpy so I cut about 7cm off the sleeves, hemed them, created inverted box pleats and then added a black button to it. I think it looks a bit more modern and wearable now:

Blog-spiration! Another Amazing Blog to enjoy and learn from

Since I'm a self-taught sewist, I learned my basic sewing techniques from books in my local library (not much on sewing) and lots from the internet. There are many wonderful, generous Bloggers who are willing to share their experience, knowledge and techniques on the blogsphere. I'm soooo grateful for those bloggers. One of the blogs that I am obsessively reading lately is StudioFaro's 'Well-suited'. She is an amazingly knowledgeable lady from Australia who posts these intriguing pattern puzzles weekly for sewists to solve. There are many lovely patterns that I would love to learn how to adapt from my tried-and-true patterns that I have already tweaked for my body. She has truly inspired me to think more out of the box, and try to take bigger risks in modifying the designs of my TNT patterns.

Go check out her weekly pattern puzzle now! Thanks StudioFaro!

Refashion: A Tiny Red Dress becomes A Bigger Tiny Red Dress

The February is Red Month theme continues! This time it's a refashion for my little girl. I was given this cute little dress and my daughter loves it. It's actually a dress for a 12-18 month old but she insisted on wearing it even though she is almost 3! The dress hit at her hip and I could hardly pull it over her head. My daughter is a very messy eater and refuses to wear a bib at meal times. But she loves this dress so much that she would wear a bib when wearing this dress.

So I thought I would do a quick refashion with this dress so that she can fit into it comfortably. First, I needed to chop off the very tight top part:

Then I used some remnant red stretch fleece and some hot pink ribbed knit (both used in this project) to make a bigger top to be attached to the bottom skirt. It took me about 45 minutes for this whole project. I hope she likes this new version of her favourite dress!

Red Faux Suede Purse Prototype

As the February Red Month theme continues, I have made a prototype of a cross-body purse that I actually need. I have been needing a good, sturdy, large enough cross-body bag for my stuff and my toddler's stuff when we go out. My old purse is on it's last legs and I haven't seen any suitable purses at my local thrift stores.

I thrifted this upholstery grade red faux suede from my local thrift store last year. I had always planned to make bags/purses out of it. There is almost a metre of this fabric which is lucky for me because I should be able to make a prototype or two out of it.

I have been thinking and planning in my head about this particular prototype for a while. I like cross-body bags because I usually have to struggle with 2 active willful kids and I have no arms left for a purse. I also need a purse with many compartments so that I can store call the coupons, library cards, points cards, little crayons and stickers for my toddler, a basic change of clothes for her, a small pot of homemade moisturizer, my phone, a tablet, and of course my bulging wallet. I know that's a lot to carry around all the time but I'm with my toddler all day long so I don't want to have to pack and unpack stuff all the time.

This is how it turned out:

It's okay but not exactly how I wanted it to turn out. First, it's not big enough for all the stuff. Second, since it's a prototype I just used whatever I have in my stash for the lining. I use a medium weight denim as the lining for the outside zipper welt pocket. And then I used a coated cotton for the inside lining. All that has added a lot of bulk to the bag. If I had use a good sturdy polyester lining fabric the bag would be a lot less bulky.

Although I'm not completely pleased with this one, I'm happy that I tested out the ideas in my head and I learned a lot about making the zipper welt pockets. I test wore this bag today and it's okay. So I'll just have to do some minor design tweaks and change the lining fabric to something more appropriate.