Thrift shop find makes nice summer dress

This lovely blue dress I got for a few dollars in the local Goodwill Thrift shop last year.  And, inspired by the Refashionista , I fidgeted with it on the sewing machine and this is how it ended up!  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of what it originally looked like!          But it had blousy elbow-length sleeves, hung down to around my ankles and was way too wide or basically hideously hanging on me.   It was probably a Medium size and needed a slash down from me.  But I loved the almost periwinkle blue color and its pattern, the V-neck, the shiny shell like buttons and how light and summery the fabric felt.  So I chopped the sleeves and made them into little cap sleeves, took in the side seams about an inch each and hacked about 6 inches off the hem.  That piece I turned into a belt that you can see tied around the waist.  I think it came out all right!   It's easy to wear in the summer heat and washes and dries quickly as the fabric is some sort of light weave. 

Baggy Brown 80s dress Gets a Make Over from Size 12 to Size 4

It must have been the floral print on the brown black background that got me. As well as the shirt front neckline and the buttonholes down the front with self-fabric covered buttons, all nicely worked and hard for me to have sewn myself (as if I could be bothered!).  I snagged this dress at a Salvation Army store and, inspired by other sewing queens on Pinterest, I felt compelled to buy this dress -- a Size 12 --  which is way too big for me,  for $3.99 and challenged myself to see if I can do the Tim Gunn "make it work" refashionista thing and to turn it into something I would actually wear out of the house, that is, into a Size 4 summer dress.  Basically it was a  massive hack-down: I slashed 2 inches out of each side seam and cut off 6 inches off the bottom and hemmed it. I also took in every one of the four vertical darts another inch or so to get the volume of the dress down even smaller and give it more curves! The piece that got cut off the bottom became a self tie belt.   I ripped out the lumpo shoulder pads and snipped out the sleeves completely, then shortened the two shoulder seam widths by about half an inch and hemmed the arm hole openings.  After a jolly good ironing, I tried it on and hey presto chango, had meself a new dress.  I've gotten a few compliments wearing this out as it has a dressy look but is very comfortable, machine washable, and cool to wear! 

Transforming Cargo Pants into Small Cargo Bag

There seem to be a lot of jeans in the fabric stash, so once again I stitched together a bag using an old pair of my son's khaki cargo pants that were horribly worn in the knees and way too small for him.  I just hacked off the pieces that had the wonderful big pockets on them and made those the sides of the bag after opening up the pant seams and stitching two big pieces together.  I then made a strap out of the rest of the leftover fabric and found another piece of fabric in my fabric stash to make a lining. This fabric was something I'd hacked off the bottom of a pink dress that I had remade into a shorter version -- you can tell I hang onto all kinds of bits of fabric!  I then embellished this bag with some brown grosgrain ribbon left over from some other project and stitched in some Velcro snaps in the top so the bag could be closed. And, hey presto chango, I had a small cargo bag.  Now, this became a gift to my sister who thought it very useful to carry all those extra things she wants to take to work with her, like shoes, or make-up or lunch.  She noted that the outside pockets were great for cell phones or keys.  I said "the whole thing is washable too!"  I just love hacking through my fabric stash with these types of useful recycling projects!

Pink floral lining and Velcro "snaps" at top of bag

Little Girl's Pillowcase Dress

I'd read about making a little girl's dress from an old pillowcase on Pinterest and other websites so I decided I just had to try one and it came out all right, don't you think? I found a pillowcase in the closet that didn't seem to have a mate -- another one of those things that disappear in the laundry. Once I figured out the heavy end seam was the bottom of the dress, I then cut along the top and cut out the arm holes.  I quickly trimmed the armholes and then turned over the top with a large seam that could hold a ribbon.  Since I'm working on busting through my bag of scrap fabrics, I found this rather pretty pink satin fabric that was once the lining to a jacket, and stitched into a long tube that became the ribbon. I then threaded this ribbon through the top seam and eh voila, pillow case dress! I added on a little pocket using the leftover fabric from the arm hole cut out and stitched it as a patch pocket right onto the dress, using some pink zigzagging as decoration.
Overall, I was quite happy with how it came out and was very pleased when a little 7 year old girl came by and when I showed it to her she said she wanted it!  I adjusted the tie ribbon for her height and she said she was going to use it as a night dress!  I am so pleased to have done this project but just a little miffed with myself for not taking of photo of the little girl in the dress, er, nightgown!