I’m always attracted to the many brightly colored afghans at my local thrift store. I finally bought this one since it’s border and decorative flower just screamed to be made into a skirt.

Basic Steps:

-Cut a rectangle from the afghan for the skirt based on how full you want the skirt. The thicker the afghan, the less full you need to make the skirt to avoid bulk at waist.

-Sew rectangle together into a tube.

-Serge cut edge of skirt to keep the loose yarn ends in place.

-Cut and sew elastic into a circle to fit child’s waist.

-Divide waistband into fourths. Divide skirt into fourths.  Pin waistband to skirt (placing wrong side of elastic to right side of skirt. click here for more details on attaching waistband elastic), matching the quarter markers and dividing the extra skirt fabric evenly between the pins.

-While stretching the elastic to fit, sew elastic to skirt.

Women’s shirred top dresses and skirts are always easy and fun to refashion.  A dress that used to be mine (and I never really liked) looks so much better on Princess.

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Basic Steps:

1. Take in shirred panel on each side to fit chest. With so much fullness, you can blend to nothing about 4″ below panel instead of taking side seams in all the way to the hem.

2. Make sleeves or straps. This dress had shirred sleeves already.  I cut cut them off and repositioned them to fit a smaller frame. For sleeveless shirred dresses, I have sometimes been able to make the sleeve/strap out of the excess fabric from taking in the side seams.  If that doesn’t work, I make straps using pieces of decorative ribbon.

3. Hem if necessary. Luckily, this dress was an awkward short length on me, making it a perfect maxi dress for her.

Before: Two gold women’s sweaters, a women’s blouse and a piece of embroidered sheer curtain fabric.

After: Two 60′s inspired mini dresses for the holidays.

The embroidered sheer curtain fabric that once sat in Todd’s (recently passed) Grandmother’s sewing pile made perfect puff sleeves for Pumpkin’s dress.

Basic Steps:

Cut off sweater sleeves.

Sew up side seams to fit child.

Cut new puff sleeves from fabric or women’s blouse to fit new armhole.

Sew in new sleeves, hem edge and insert elastic to create puff.

Our elementary school had a “spirit day” where they were allowed to wear “holiday t-shirts” instead of their uniform.  The problem was that the girls didn’t tell me about it until the night before.  Maybe it was the “Mom, you always make the best stuff,” or “Mom, we have two old shirts you can use,” or “Mom, whatever you make us, we’ll love it”, but somewhere around 8pm I had been convinced it would be worth it to spend my evening making my girls a couple of festive shirts.

I didn’t have a lot of time to come up with ideas, so I turned to Pinterest, the black hole of visual inspiration, and found the idea for a ruffled ribbon Christmas tree in 1.2 seconds.  Instead of ribbon, I dug into my huge bin full of scraps, gathering all the random pieces of green I could find and topped the rows of ruffles with poufs of leftover, sparkly Vanna’s Glamour Yarn.

In the morning, once they finished the argument over who wanted what color shirt, the girls stayed true to their promise to “love whatever I made them”.

Since the advent of the Slim Slack refashioning tutorial, I just can’t bear to buy boys pants (other than jeans) off the rack anymore.  The selection of men’s pants at the thrift store is always so amazing, I think I have a stack of a half dozen pairs just waiting to get attacked with scissors.

I fell in love with the pattern on these old, men’s, polyester slacks and the price tag: $1.99 at my local thrift store.

When I spotted this little boot design on Pinterest a few months ago, i immediately popped over to IThinkSew.com and bought the pattern.  Best $4 I’ve ever spent since I think these boots are going to become my “go to” baby gift for the next little while (especially if I can keep finding houndstooth sport coats with cool buttons at the thrift store for $1).

You can buy the pattern HERE.

*note: I was very impressed with the pattern.  After the many poor quality “for sale” patterns I have seen on the internet, this one was really refreshing. The instructions were only confusing because the author over explains otherwise simple procedures in cutting and sewing.  But if you are a beginner, this is great for you!  My only other tip, if you decide to take on this project, would be to sew the lining sole to the lining upper with a slightly larger seam so there is less bulk on the inside of the shoe.

Paired with a gift card to the local bookstore, these patchwork bookmarks will make a great gift for my kid’s teachers.

It was a wonderful project to get the kids involved with from choosing the fabrics from my huge bag of scrap fabric, to doing the actual sewing and ironing.  I had to do most of the sewing for my 3 year old’s bookmarks but I let him step on the sewing pedal as we quilted the pieces together so now he feels total ownership of making his bookmarks.  Piecing all the strips together was the perfect first sewing project for my 6 year old who has been dying to use her sister’s outgrown Hello Kitty Janome machine.  My more experienced nine year old was able to complete the entire project on her own (yay!).

Basic Steps

1. Cut 6 strips of fabric about 2″x10″ (makes three bookmarks). We did varying widths between 1 1/2″ – 2 1/4″.

2. Sew all pieces together along longest edge (use 1/2″ seam allowance on all)

3. Place pieced layer on top of lightweight cotton batting & use straight or decorative machine stitch to quilt together.

4. Layer quilted piece with backing fabric and cut three  3″ wide strips of pieced fabric (perpendicular to seams).

5. With right sides together, sew quilted layer to backing fabric leaving a small opening on side to turn.  Make sure to remember to insert a small ribbon loop at one end!

6. Trim seams, clip corners and turn.

7.  Iron flat and sew an edge stitch all around (this will close up turning hole).

Using four vintage hankies and a dyed, newborn wrap shirt, a variation on the Newborn Wrap Dress Tutorial was born.

Way back when we lived in NYC, Maria was our adopted grandma. Since she didn’t have any family there and neither did we, we were happy to make her a part of ours.  She was adorably funny and super talented but was taken too soon by a battle with cancer. Stupid cancer.  After she passed, one of the ladies who helped clean out her apartment brought me a little bag of Maria’s knitting supplies. In the bag, among the supplies, was a half finished, lavender sweater. I couldn’t bear to get rid of it.

Six years later, those two knitted rectangles are now a sweater for Pumpkin.  A sweater that matches her new purple glasses.  A sweater that reminds us of our Grandma Maria.

STEPS:

Cut rectangles at top to match.  The shape of the sweater is just a rectangle with slits at the sides for arms and a slit at the top for head.

Sew up side seams leaving 5″ open for armholes

Sew across top (shoulders) leaving 8″ open for neck.

Finish neck edge with a bias tape facing.

Bind shoulder seams to prevent unraveling.

I know you have a ton of big, yet sentimental, t-shirts sitting at the back of your drawer that are just begging for a transformation.  They deserve to get worn! Head on over to the Words to Sweat By blog for my latest T-shirt refashion tutorial. And while you’re there, check out their “mantra” workout towels. They make perfect stocking stuffers!