T-shirt to Cheeky Garter Belt Refashion And Tutorial

Yay! More lingerie refashions! This will be lingerie tutorial #2 (#1), but there will definitely be more to come. I had been wanting to make my own lingerie for a long time but I had a hard time justifying putting that much time and energy into something I could only wear in my own house. Finally I gave up trying to justify it and just stahrted sewing. Besides, I have made a number of pieces of men's lingerie (true story), why not make my own?
I was inspired by this awesome graphic T I mined from a corporate thriftstore in my neighbourhood. Originally they were going to be panties but I decided that wasn't quite cheeky enough for this find.
As always (usually) I started by cutting the tshirt open at the seams to create flat pattern pieces.
I marked my pattern on the right side so that I wasn't having to constantly flip it back and forth to make sure I wasn't cutting through the graphic.
I folded the shirt in half to make sure my cut was symmetrical.
I did the same with the blank back of the shirt. The blank piece will be the front of the garter.
The hem on the graphic (which is the back of the garter belt) rose up much higher). The cut ends up looking like this.
I also made a liner out of the rest of the t-shirt so that the t-shirt cotton wouldn't stretch out of shape as easily. For the liner I just cut duplicates of the first two pieces. I sewed both the sets of pattern pieces together seperately.
And attatched them at the top, right sides together.
At the bottom I folded both hems in toward each other and sewed the bottom hem with a zig zag stitch.
With scraps from the t-shirt I created these four garters by cutting 1.25" widths and folding them in on eachother so no raw edges are visible. I sewed them closed with a zig zag stitch.
For lack of ready garter clips I repurposed paper clips which worked surprisingly well. So well that I doubt I'll replace them.
And voila!
May the refashion be with you.

Sweater Socks

I have definitely been experiencing blog withdrawals in the week since I last posted. Fortunately I have found some time to sew at least! My latest project:

I didn't take many during pictures. My health stuff has been acting up and this bit of sewing was a stretch so pictures weren't at the forefront of my mind. I started with this sweater, mined from my favourite charity thrift store for 2.50$ When I saw it I was immediately reminded of this pin:

http://weheartit.com/entry/25829799

I love finding things that remind me of pins! The only thing I love more (as far as pinning goes) is making something I pinned! After cutting the sleeves from the sweater I cut along the highest full stripe so the pattern would be uniform. Then I cut the body of the sweater in half and serged the seams closed so I had two more tubes of fabric. The waist band of the sweater will become the top band of the socks. I sewed the top tube (from the body) to the bottom tube (the sleeves), round out the toes and brought the seams in until the socks fit snugly to my legs. Mine reach to just above my knees. In retrospect I would have used more of the body to make them higher. Guess I'll just have to make more...bummer ;) Shared on

Wildeman Wednesday #3

This post is brought to you by 

the number 3!

 

Okay, I know it says Wednesday up there ^ and it is decidedly not Wednesday. I transfer my pictures from my tablet to my computer via Asus web storage and the site was down yesterday so I couldn't get anything posted.

 

On that same note, these pictures are awful. I really need to get one of the two cameras sitting on my desk fixed. Anyone know what causes a "lens error"? Both seem to have fallen victim to this strange camera illness within weeks of each other. Perhaps it's contagious?

 

Speaking of which Wildeman has been super sick (so have dad and mom but we're much better at breathing through our mouths than he is) which has been unpleasant. And the little munchkin's teeth decided that now would be a great time to work their way into the world. Awesome.

 

So, here is an uncomfortable but still trying to be cooperative little man in

 

Baby It's Cold Outside

BTW this isn't an attempt to be artsy (although my kid's pretty cute in black and white). The tablet was messing with the colour and Wildeman ended up looking purple in almost every shot. The warm uh...coveralls? Sleeper? Anyway, it's grey. You can see the colour in the tutorial. Just keep on scrolling.

Women's Button Down to Baby's Button Down

Hello everyone,

It's time for some baby refashions! I have made a ton of clothes for Wildeman and I intend to share them all for you. There really aren't enough cool, commercially available baby clothes in the world. My kid is already cute, covering him in bunnies and teddy bears seems like overkill. It's a damn good thing I can sew or he would be naked all the time!

On with the tutorial:

Simple Refashion: XL Men's T-shirt to Cinched Tunic

Man it feels good to be doing this again!

I loved this idea I found on Pinterest a while ago but hadn't come across the right shirt until my last thrift store visit. The Value Village near my house is a goldmine of large men's graphic T's, and I fortuitously have an obsession with graphic T's. When I found this one I knew I had to have it and immediately knew what to do with it.

I love a cheeky graphic.

DIY Jewelry Display

Hello to you other crafty foxes,

Not long ago I posted this article on my antique-cheese grater turned earring display. It was all well and good EXCEPT that my other lovely jewelry went undisplayed, unorganized, neglected and generally sad. I love my jewelry far too much to leave it in such a state! Luckily, though my husband's craftiness hides somewhere beneath his concious mind his eye in a thrift store is epic and he found a beauitful old wooden shoe shiner box, which, turned sideways and screwed to my wall, proved absolutely perfect.

Earrings on their own

(all sad)

 

 



 

Jewelry all together

(yay!)

 

Lace Shorts!

New tutorial for today!

I know that lace shorts have been a thing for a while now but I didn't know about them until I saw a woman wearing them at the doctors office and I was in love! But is there any chance that a maternity option is available for these beauties? Not a shot in hell. But that's okay because I have a sewing machine and a giant box of lace my aunt wanted to get rid of. Score!

You can use this tutorial to make non-maternity shorts really easily as when I make maternity bottoms I just keep the waist below the belly so that I can still wear my creations after the baby is born.

The Shorts

Rocket Skirt/Top

Happy almost the end of June!

How is everyone liking my new blog?

I have another maternity tutorial for you today! At the thrift store a while back I found a wicked extra-large, extra-tall men's t-shirt that was covered in rocket ships. My non-pregnant self could have worn the thing as a dress it was so huge but prego me fills out the front a little to much. So, I made a new thing! It's a shirt/skirt for pregnant a ladies!

The finished product:

The tutorial:

Originally I wanted to make a dress using the rocket fabric a the skirt and and old black t-shirt as the top. These were my starting materials, I think the shirt was around 7$:

Sewing Stuff and Beautiful Suitcases!

Hello Crafters

How's everyone doing this morning? I'm feeling pretty happy with myself as I made that top below in one day and got a dress about half-made. Not too shabby.

Now, one might say that organization is not exactly my forte. And if someone said that they would be being exceptionally generous. For example, this is how I stored my fabric and supplies until about two days ago:

I'm not even kind of kidding.

 Let me break it down for you so you can see what I'm working with:

Not so good, especially with a baby on the way. I can count about 150 death traps in that little stash. I was looking (in a very disciplined manner, and it did not take 12 hours) on pinterest for some ideas on repurpose-friendly and fashionable ways to store all of this crap. I found this from Ink Spot Workshop:

Men's XL to Women's Maternity

Hello!

I told you I would get a tutorial up here sometime soon and I meant it! I guess I'm over the first trimester fatige (at 4 freakin' months!). I whipped this little beauty up yesterday afternoon and now it's my favourite maternity shirt!!! Read on for the tutorial:

After

Before

Organizing my Earrings

Hey everyone!

So, I have a lot of earrings and not a lot of space. For a while now I have been keeping my eyes open at thrift stores for some brilliant earring holding re-purpose. And yesterday I found myself a wicked old cheese grater! Does have one downside though: it only really hold the earrings that have hooks. Need to figure something else out for the studs. Here it is, quite a beauty...