MAGAM Dec Project Part 1 - Cocktail dress to top Refashion

I looked at the 3 special occasion dresses that I wanted to refashion for the MAGAM (Make A Garment A Month) December challenge for a few days with no concrete ideas on what to do with them. So today I decided to just chop one of the dresses into a top. I thought that one can always use a semi-dressy top to wear with jeans or pants.

I chose the brown poly knit dress to refashion. The dress was a good fit but a bit blah in colour. I measured approximately where I wanted the bottom hem of the top to be and chopped it right off. Then I used my serger to do a rolled hem and voila! It's done!.

Before vs After:

I think it looks okay. I may wear it more now that it's a top. Now I just need to figure out what to do with the other 2 dresses......

Handmade Christmas Presents Challenge - Earrings!

I'm almost reaching the end of my Handmade Christmas Presents Challenge. I made earrings for my kids' teachers. I usually give gift cards as well as a handmade personal gift for the teachers a few times a year. One of the teachers actually wear my handmade earrings to the classroom and told me she appreciated them. As they are all women teachers this year, I'm hoping these sparkly jewelry will put them in a good holiday mood!

MAGAM December project - Which Holiday dress to Refashion?

I've been scratching my head to figure out what to do for the MAGAM (Make A Garment A Month) December project. The theme is 'December Dates'. Obviously December is a month of celebrations for many people. I have already made too many special occasions garments and didn't have enough occasions to wear them! So I am thinking instead of making something NEW from scratch, how about refashioning/upcycling one of the old special occasion garments?

I blogged about this 3 Simplicity 4877 knit dresses in 2012 (see here). I wore the red long dress 3 times, the sparkly floral long  dress once and the brown matte jersey short dress twice. They are all super comfortable and easy to care for. I want to refashion at least one of them into something else (if I have enough time I would like to refashion more than 1!). Which one do you think I should tackle?

Handmade Christmas Presents Challenge - Faux fur Christmas Stockings

I'm trying to get all the Handmade Christmas presents done before the end of Nov! With the remaining grey faux fur that I used for the faux fur pillows, I made a pair of Faux Fur Christmas Stockings with a self-drafted  pattern:

I'm not too enthusiastic about sewing with faux fur because of all the mess. However, I saw that lots of the medium to higher end home decor stores have lots of faux fur stockings. So I guess that is trendy right now. I hope my family members like them! Now I need to get on with making the other gifts.....

Handmade Christmas Presents Challenge - A Refashion and an Applique

Amid all the ranting about paring down my wardrobe, I have been continuing making handmade Christmas Presents. This time, I made a Mickey Mouse pyjama set for my boy. I used a thrifted a pair of women's mickey mouse pyjama pants that I bought at my local thrift store for $1.99 to make the pj pants. I used the hem of the original pants so it was a super easy refashion:

PJ pants before

Then I cut a silhouette of the head of Mickey Mouse with the remnant fabrics from the pants, and did an applique on a plain boy's t-shirt:

Excuse the messy topstitching!

So here is the final pj set:

I hope he likes it! I have a few more gifts to make.......better get on with it!

Wardrobe Stash Cleansing - the Plan

Since ranting about wanting to pare down my wardrobe to a sustainable level a few days ago, I decided to set a self-challenge: to cleanse something from my wardrobe stash every week between now and the end of the year. To accomplish this challenge, I need to put a plan in place.

First, I will deal with just the Fall/Winter garments and accessories. I will lay out all the wintry items, photograph them, and wear different items each day for the next month to test their wear-ability. I will then evaluate each items in with the following questions:

1. Does it fit?
2. Is it comfortable?
3. Is it warm?
4. Is it practical for day to day purpose (e.g. driving, grocery shopping, taking care of young children, running after children, carrying heavy loads, cooking, etc)?
5. Is it beautiful?
6. Does it have great sentimental value (e.g. given to me by a special person, me-made items that took lots of sweat and tears, etc)?

I think I'll probably falter at the last question regarding sentimentality since most of my wardrobe consists of me-made items. Perhaps I will end up purging all the store purchased stuff from my wardrobe once and for all! LOL!

Also, once I have catalogued all the items in the wardrobe, I will be shocked at the actual volume and be shamed into purging at least some of them.

I have called a couple of local charity shops and sadly they have confirmed that they would sometimes throw away donated items that didn't have tags on them. They said that the tagged items (especially the known brands like H&M, Gap, Zara, TopShop, etc) were the ones that sell well whereas the custom made stuff (no tags) stayed on the racks forever. So they would rather not receive them. How sad! I will need to find a good home for them somehow if I do decide to purge them.

Fall/Autumn Winter Packing list - Minimalist Style

We have dear family and friends who live far away. I have become more efficient in packing when we go to visit them a few times a year. The kids obviously need more changes of clothes than adults (e.g. getting car sick or spilling spaghetti on their clothes). Recently we just came back from a 4 day visit with friends/family and this is what I packed:

Plus socks, underwear, a pair of boots and coat.

I packed:

• A recently refashioned grey sweater dress and a wool jersey dress (both thrifted and refashioned)
• 1 flannel shirt (thrifted)
• 2 scarfs to change the looks of the dresses - the red one was a handmade gift and the infinity scarf was made from thrifted fabric
• 2 pairs of fleece lined leggings in different colours (both thrifted)
• A belt (thrifted)
• Plus socks, underwear, a coat and a pair of boots (I don't bother with packing more than 1 pair of shoes/boots if I don't absolutely have to)

The whole lot took up very little space in our family luggage.

These are the outfits from the 4 day trip (the first and last day were driving days):

This is very typical of what I would pack for a 4 or 5 day trip. If it's a 6 or 7 day trip, I would add another sweater dress, probably a comfortable and more roomy one like this one that I layer (refashioned from 3 men's sweaters):

My girlfriends are always curious as to why I wear dresses so much in the winter since I'm usually a tomboy. For me, it's the perfect garment for cold weather: it's warm and cozy from my neck to my knee, it's stretchy and comfy to wear (no woven waistbands to dig into my waist), it's easy to wear as you just throw it on and you're dressed (yes I'm lazy). What's not to like?

Help! I'm trying to pare down my Wardrobe - A Rant

I feel like I'm sounding like a broken record: I have too much clothes in my closet! I need to pare down! But most of the stuff in my closet are me-made or me-refashioned items, I have a hard time parting with them. (See the same old rants here and here). And even if I donate them to the local charities, they may just throw them in the garbage bin because my me-made clothes have no tags that indicate brands or sizes. That would defeat the purpose of donating and recycling my clothes!

So when I read a recent post from one of my favourite bloggers Zoe Edwards about trying to achieve a 'sustainable wardrobe', I was nodding all the way! However, I still don't know what to do with my very large me-made wardrobe.

What do you think I should do? Should I have a online yard sale/car boot sale of sorts to pare down my wardrobe? Any ideas and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Yet Another Break from the Handmade Christmas Presents Challenge - Sweater dress Refashion

I can't help it but I just have to go back to making things for myself! This time I'm doing another easy refashion for a thrifted sweater dress. I bought this wool blend Monsoon sweater dress from my local thrift store last year. I loved the colour and I had planned to make an asymmetrical hem tunic.

It was a little too slouchy on me. I decided to keep it as a sweater dress and pinned the sides of the dress slightly to make it more fitted. After less than an hour, here is the result:

It doesn't look too different except a little bit too fitted for my liking. It highlights my protruding lower abdomen a bit too much. I wear a low belt to try to disguise it. However I may just do a re-refashion with this dress at a later date. For now, I have yet another sweater dress to wear for this winter!

Handmade Christmas Presents Challenge - Faux Fur Pillows

Yes we are back with the Handmade Christmas Presents Challenge. A couple of close family members are moving into their new home. So I thought why not give them some home decor presents? I searched through my fabric stash and found this grey faux fur that I bought a few years ago when a local fabric store was closing down. I thought that this grey colour should go with almost any decor or style/colour of their sofa:

There was a good 2 metres of it. I debated whether to make a faux fur sofa throw or pillows. In the end I figured that people probably wouldn't mind having different textured pillows on their sofa. A big faux fur throw could be too much a commitment for them. So in 2 hours I made these pillows:

I am always hesitant in making faux fur stuff because of the fluff they produce during the making process. I swept and vacuumed along the way and I wore a face mask. But I think it was worth it for 2 hours of work. I hope they like the gifts!

Another break from the Handmade Christmas Presents Challenge - Sweater Dress Refashion

Yes I'm taking another break from making stuff for others and concentrate on moi! :-) This time I'm also doing a very quick and simple refashion.

I thrifted this wool blend grey long sweater dress last year. It's nice and soft and grey is an excellent neutral colour for me:

It's down to my toes - not practical at all!

I heard that long sweater dresses are in fashion right now but it really is not practical in knee deep snow. So I just cut it about knee length and hemmed the dress with 2 rows of narrow zig-zag stitching. It took about 30 minutes of work. And this is how I am wearing it:

I am wearing it with a thrifted belt, an infinity scarf made with thrifted fabrics, purple tights and rainboots (it's rainy right now). I'm happy to have added this to my collection of very useful, refashioned sweater dress for the winter!

Random thoughts: Gwen's embellished boots

As I have mentioned before on my blog, I'm really grateful that I sew. I love having this kinda useful hobby (better than a gambling hobby perhaps? ;-), I can replicate a lot of things that I like or my kids like at a fraction of the cost. My creative outlet relaxes me and is very therapeutic for me. My hubby is happy when I sew which means I'm not buggy him or complaining about things (sewing is vital for marital bliss! LOL!).

As for copycat fashions, I saw on an entertainment blog about these boots that Gwen Stefani wore recently. Apparently lots of fashion blog readers were salivating for them:

Source

They are really not my style but I thought it wouldn't be difficult to replicate those embellishments on a pair of plain black ankle boots. I don't know how much these actual boots cost but I think any seasons crafter can do a DIY version of this. You need some chevron ribbons, some knitted band and then some zipper tapes, sew them together and add some lose yarn at the back. Then slide the whole 'cuff' on top of any plain black stiletto ankle boots and you have the look of these probably very expensive designer boots!