DIY Friday: How to Make a Cute Colour-Block Dress From Two Ugly Shirts

Hello there lovelies,

Happy belated DIY Friday! Apologies that I'm running so late, but I had a very relaxing Friday this week, and I was loathe to disturb it for anything, even blogging. Anyway, this DIY project was inspired by my new work shirts. A few weeks ago we got new flashy work uniforms with our names embroidered on them! I'm pretty happy because I've never had a name on my shirt before, but I was initially stumped about what to do with my incredibly ugly old work shirts. We were required to wear polo shirts, and the only ones I could find on short notice were a couple of brightly coloured men's ones. Then I got to thinking - what trend can I approach with two brightly coloured polo shirts begging for a refashion? Colour-blocking of course! This is how I made my two ugly shirts into a cute colour-block dress:

Equipment required for this project: Two loose-fitting polo shirts/t-shirts, tailors chalk, something to measure a straight line with (a ruler, or even Australian Sky & Telescope magazine should suffice), scissors, and a sewing machine.

First, take the shirt that will make up the top and bottom of your dress. Draw a line with your tailors chalk straight across the shirt about an inch from the bottom of the armpit. Cut your shirt into two pieces, and keep both. Take your second shirt, and repeat the line & cutting about an inch below the armpit. Now, cut off the bottom hem of the second shirt as well (sorry I don't have a picture of this, but they turned out crazy blurry for some reason!). You should have a tube of shirt left from the second shirt.

Now, we're going to create the bodice of the dress, and get rid of this ugly collar. I wanted a nice round, low neck for my dress, so I marked a u-shape with my tailors chalk, finishing an equal measurment from both shoulder seams. Cut out the u-shape.

My shirt also had pretty ugly hems on the sleeves, so I cut those off too.
Now line up your pieces, and bask in the glory of how awesome your dress is going to be! Then, get down to sewing business. You need to sew the bodice of the dress to the middle piece, and the middle piece to the bottom piece. You'll need to sew the pieces right sides together, so that your messy seam is on the inside of the dress, not the outside (the right side of the fabric is the side you're going to see).

Ta-da! Now all that's left is to hem your neckline & sleeves, and get on with looking awesome!

I styled my dress with a waist belt (Trade Secret, $12.95), an owl necklace (Trade Secret, $4.95), and a pair of brogues (Trade Secret, $19.95). What would you style yours with? Do you like the colour-blocking trend that's making the rounds? If you make one of these yourself, will you send me pictures? Please? I hope you do!

Until next time, xo.

DIY Friday: How To Turn a Dress Into a Heart-Back Blouse

Hello there lovelies,

We're on a DIY mission today - a mission for me to finally post this DIY that I photographed almost a month ago! You guys that follow me on Facebook might remember me throwing a slight tantrum on my weekend trip to Hervey Bay. I'm such a bad travelling blogger! I forget to bring half my gadgets with me, and then throw tantrums because my beautifully planned posts go to waste. Well not this one!

Equipment required for this project: A dress that is too small in the thighs (pictured above, although it kinda just looks like I'm pointing at my crotch for no reason), an old crochet tablecloth, sewing machine, tailors chalk, sewing pins, scissors, plain white paper, & a pencil.

First, I took note of what button my dress started getting tight at. This is where we're going to chop it off. Take out your tailors chalk, and some kind of flat surface (usually a ruler is recommended, but I like to use The Boyfriend's magazine spines). Now draw a line at the spot that you want to cut the fabric. Grab your scissors, and cut along the line.

This is what you'll be left with! Already, we have a perfectly nice blouse - all we need to do is hem the bottom edge of the blouse so that the fabric doesn't fray. At this point I decided that my blouse was still a little too boring, and decided to add a heart-shape cut out at the back.

I really just winged this bit. I took out some paper, and experimented with the positioning and size until it covered the area that I wanted my heart to go. Then I whipped out my pencil & free-hand drew what is possibly the best heart-shape I have ever drawn in my life. Alternatively, you could find a heart template on the web, print it out & trace it to get your heart shape. Whatever you decide, you'll need to cut the heart shape out next.

Now, we're going to pin the heart to the back of our blouse. Again, I played around with the positioning a bit until I got the heart in the right position. Try to pin it down fairly firmly, as next you're going to cut around outline of this heart to get the heart shape in the back of your blouse.

Alright, now lay out your tablecloth. To make sure you get a big enough piece of tablecloth to cover the heart-shaped hole in your blouse, cut around the rectangle of the piece of paper that you cut your heart template out of. You're left with a rectangle of crochet fabric that you can manipulate better to completely cover the hole that if you just cut out a heart shape.

You're on the final step! Pin your crochet rectangle into place over the heart shape in the back of your blouse. Make sure it covers the hole completely, and that this is enough overlap for the crochet piece to be sewn onto the blouse fabric. Now whack this baby into your sewing machine, and sew around the heart shape. Now, all that's left to do is pose like a wacko in your cute new blouse:

I styled mine with my favourite jumpsuit from Trade Secret ($29.95), a belt from Trade Secret ($5.95), sandals from Trade Secret ($14.95), and an owl necklace from my beautiful friend Sarah. I also annoyed The Boyfriend by making very un-serious faces into the camera while he was trying to seriously photograph me. Enjoy!

Until next time, xo.

P.S. Here's some more really cute heart-related DIY's for you to try: lace heart cardigan, heart elbow patches for a sweater, heart-knee jeans, a heart sweatshirt, another heart sweatshirt, and how to get heart-shaped bokeh from your camera.

DIY Friday: Snag Some Brittany S. Pierce Style

Hello there lovelies,

Another character that really came into their own stylistically in the second season of Glee was everyone's favourite vapid blonde, Brittany S. Pierce. I pretty much fell in love with her style the second that the Cheerio's uniform came off and she started appearing in those mismatched ensembles, usually involving mens suspenders, florals, and some kind of animal-related hat. But my favourite style moment was when Rachel paid Brittany to try & make legwarmers cool, which resulted in the McKinley High trend of wearing legwarmers on your arms. In Brittany's defence, she had a perfectly good reason for the leg-cum-armwarmers:

So, without further ado, I'm going to show you how to refashion an old knit sweater/jumper into a pair of Brittany S. Pierce style armwarmers, and a few other Winter goodies at the same time. You're going to need to start off with something like this:

Equipment required for this project: a sewing machine (or an enthusiastic hand sewer), tailors chalk, scissors, and a beanie that you like (for measuring, not for attacking with the scissors).

First we're going to cut off the sleeves of the sweater to turn into your new armwarmers. Now, the main thing to remember is that knit fabric like this frays like crazy. Absolute crazy. So, where ever possible we need to keep the original seams/hems in tact to stop the fabric from fraying before we can sew new seams/hems.

Alrighty, now cut the sleeves off your sweater, keeping the seam attached to the sleeve.

You'll be left with this funny shape on the end of your armwarmers. Now, we sew a new seam/hem to make the end of our armwarmers flat. I sewed mine just after the second gray stripe in the picture. Be careful not to sew the end of your armwarmers shut! You may also want to lengthen the stitch on your sewing machine so that it can sew the knit fabric more easily. Once your new hem is sewn, cut off the funny looking end piece. Congratulations, now you have some Brittany S. Pierce style armwarmers!

Now you're left with a piece looking like this. Next, we're going to make a beanie, using the neck hole of the sweater as the head hole of the beanie. In preparation for the next step, turn your sweater inside out.

Lay your awesome favourite beanie over the sweater so that the opening lines up with the neckhole of the sweater. Now, draw around your beanie with your tailors chalk. Don't worry if you make your beanie too big the first time, you can always make it smaller later.

Note: I cut my beanie a little bit strange, because I wanted to preserve as much as possible of the cool crochet-like detail at the neck of the sweater. Now, I forgot to take a photo of this stage, but sew the new seam of your beanie BEFORE you cut your beanie away from the rest of the fabric. Sewing the hem first makes sure your fabric doesn't fray before you have a chance to sew it. Once you've sewn the hem & cut the beanie shape out, turn your fabric out the right way. Congratulations, you now have a brand new beanie to match your armwarmers!

Now, we're left with this sad, sad, piece of sweaterdom. I decided that I wanted to make an infinity scarf as well, so I sewed a new hem along the top of the black stripe second from the bottom, and then cut the bottom of the sweater away from what was left of the bodice. Easy-peasy, and now your armwarmers & beanie have a matching scarf to go with them.

Here's a final shot of all the cool things you just turned an old sweater into. And you hardly wasted any sweater fabric doing it! Now all that's left is to wear your pieces with a bit of Brittany style. I teamed mine with a slouchy off the shoulder tee, denim leggings, and ankle boots - all staples of non-cheerleading uniform Brittany style.

There you go! Making some Winter accessories is so easy that even Brittany herself could do it (although she may need some assistance with working the scissors). Note that my scarf turned out fairly small, as the sweater I started the project with was a cropped style - I think the scarf would work better with a regular, or oversized sweater! If you guys have any questions, don't be afraid to ask! I hope you enjoyed yourselves with this tutorial as much as I did.

Until next time, xo.

P.S. I used this post from A Beautiful Mess for inspiration & extra tips on how to sew using sweater knit. You should check it out too, because the girls are totally amazing!

DIY Madness

Hello there lovelies,

It's so nice to hear from all of you again! I won't keep you in suspense, since all of you were so eager to see what I whipped up in my sewing frenzy this past weekend.

This fabric (which reminded The Boyfriend of TIE Fighters) :

Became this:

A cute mini-skirt, which I used this tutorial of Max California's to make. I only used one fold-over band at the top, instead of adding another one at the bottom. I'm undecided though, I may add a bottom band later if I feel like it needs one. I also used plain old fabric instead of a t-shirt.

This fabric (which is my personal favourite of the bunch):

Became this:

A high-waisted ruffly skirt, which I also used a Max California tutorial for. Instead of using my underbust measurements I used waist measurements, and I left off the extra ruffles. As you may have noticed in the above picture, I also made a bow to sit above the zipper closure on the back of this skirt.

This adorable monotone fabric:

Became this:

I made this skirt exactly the same way as the purple one, but didn't make a bow for this one.

Hurray, skirts galore! I've been itching to wear short skirts the last few weeks, and I realised that I don't really have any. I was going to wait until we next went into Emerald & buy some from Jay Jays, but I figured it was pretty silly to wait when I have the fabric, the sewing machine & the know-how to make them myself, haha. All this material was op-shopped, for about $3 a piece (and I still have enough left of each to make something else). So, even accounting for zippers & thread, each skirt probably still cost me less than $5. Sweet!

Ahh, but the really knowledgeable among you (or you know, all you guys who follow me on Twitter) might be saying right now "but Stacey, you told us you'd made four things." And you're absolutely right, I did make four things. One of those things just happens to tie really nicely into another post I'm planning, so I'll leave you with this picture until then:

What have you been sewing lately? Any good tutorials you've stumbled across?

Until next time, xo.

DIY Madness

Hello there lovelies,

I've been such a slack DIYer lately, but I finally took some pictures of some things I made in the last few weeks. Or, you know, the last two months because I am really, incredibly slack. Also, ignore my unwashed hair and case of Chronic Bitch Face. It took enough effort to get motivated to take photos at all, so they whole "hair-washing-enthusiastic-facing" thing just didn't happen.

I made a hoodie with a huge pocket in the front for storing whatever random things it takes my fancy to store in a huge pocket. I scored a huge roll of this fabric from the op-shop for around $3. It feels really nice & fleecy in real life, and as you can see, has a different pattern on each side of the fabric.

'Nother shot, showing off the stars on the inside of the hood. I made this one from scratch, using a t-shirt pattern from one of the TAFE sewing courses I did last year, and adding the hood, pocket & long sleeves. I attached the hood a little wonky by accident, but I don't really care.

This is another jumper made from op-shop fabric. I got this beautiful soft red woolen fabric for around $2. The corset print came from a t-shirt I impulse bought from work, only to realise that the quality of the shirt was really poor, and the print sat weirdly high on my chest. So, the logical fix was to cut the print out and sew it to a jumper. OBVIOUSLY. I made this one a little longer than the other one, and made longer sleeves - otherwise I stretch the arms of my jumpers trying to cover up my freezing iceblock hands in Winter.

'Scuse the blue bra. I wasn't going to change it just to take photos - jeez, what kind of crazy operation do you think I'm running here? Anyway, I made this dress out of the last of my 5-metre roll of anchor fabric, and a singlet that I bought for shredding only to realise it was the wrong material.


I'm actually not too sold on this dress, as cute as it is. I love it from the back, but the front not so much. Maybe I can find some really cute nautically-themed buttons to add to the bodice so that it doesn't look so plain...

Alright, now this one is where I need your help & guidance, oh wide internetz of crafty bloggers. I made this dress by cutting a top in half, then cutting a dress in half and sewing them together. I love the two patterns together, but the overall effect is very blocky, I'm not 100% happy with the length and the waist is a lot bigger than I intended it to be.

I'm trying to decide what to do with this one, and how best to redeem it. Desperately seeking opinions as to what might look good, or whether I should just toss this one in the too-hard basket and move along. What do you guys out there think?

Until next time, xo.

How To: DIY a Droopy Bow-Front T-Shirt

Hello there lovelies,

As you can see, I'm pretty exhausted. I made this cute droopy bow-front top, and decided to write up some instructions so that you can do it too! As you can see, my little dog is also super-tired from helping so much. Of course, by "helping" I mean sleeping on my fabric, incessantly whining and trying to sit on my lap while I operated the sewing machine. It was a big day for him. Thanks for the help Bow! And now, onwards to the DIY.

Materials:

• 1 T-shirt (I used a t-shirt that already fitted me well, but you could use a bigger t-shirt and resize it)
• 1 large rectangle/square of fabric (The wider it is, the wider the band over the shoulders. The longer it is, the bigger and droopier the bow).
• Tailors Chalk
• Fabric Scissors
• Pins
  
• Sewing Machine (I mean, if you really wanted to you could hand-sew, but that would suck)
  

Take the big piece of fabric, and cut it in half. You now have two long strips of fabric. Sew one end of one strip, to one end of the other strip. Now you have one really long strip of fabric.

Now you're going to make your long strip into a long tube. Fold the strip in half, with right sides of the fabric together. Sew all the way along one short side, and the long side of the folded strip.

Sew 3/4 of the other short side of the strip shut, leaving enough room to turn the tube right-side out - this way all the messy stitching is kept inside the tube.

Turn the tube right-side out, and neatly sew the hole closed. Congratulations you have a huge tube! Now put the tube aside for a minute, and we'll work on the t-shirt.

Find a t-shirt with a good scoop neck, and use it to mark where to cut the new neckline for the t-shirt you're working on.

Cut the neckline of the t-shirt where you marked it - you should be left with something that looks like this. Now it's time to bring that tube back into the mix!


So, I stupidly forgot to take pictures of this, but pin your tube to the neckline of your t-shirt, lining up the centre of the strip with the centre of the back of the t-shirt (You want the two ends of the tube at the front of the tee, because they're what will become your bow). Then sew your tube to the neck of your t-shirt, making sure you don't sew over any pins. Now you're pretty much done!

All that is left to do is put your new droopy-bow neck t-shirt on, and tie the ends of the neckpiece into a bow!
And of course, pose like a loser while look absolutely fabulous! Congratulations, you made an awesome shirt!

In this picture you can see little Bow's contribution to this tutorial - heaps of little creamy dog hairs. I'm so glad I decided to make one of these tops. I've seen quite a few variations on this design come through at work, but I held off buying one because I thought it would be easy to make (and what do you know, I was right). Let me know if you decide to make one! I want to know if my instructions make sense, haha.

Until next time, xo.