Muddy colored sheet to sweet pink kimono!

The thrift store sheet had a muddy purplish hue, and I needed practice sewing. When sheet met me, I seized my chalk, yardstick, and scissors and followed the instructions for the retro Magic Reversible Kimono. (Only one sheet meant only one-thickness kimono, not reversible, fyi). Then I made my own bias tape with which to trim the neckline and fill in the too-open back. (Cheap Wal-Mart discount material proved abundant, and the material's creamy shininess actually complements the pink). Yes, pink: I bleached that old sheet with a vengeance, then dyed it with a quick bath of RIT Petal Pink. If you leave it in the full 30 minutes, the pink is too "bubble-gum" and I wanted it a gentle pastel. So I just ran the sheet through the 15 minutes of RIT Petal Pink fame in the hot water cycle. And I love the result!!

Sweater hat

I made a hat out of a scrappy old moth-bitten sweater. Sorry - forgot to take a "before" photo, but in my defense the sweater was pretty ratty. It makes for a lovely little hat, though!

Fat Me and a Pocket Shift from an old sheet

Fat Me: Thank you, psychiatric meds. You've made my body a blob of yuk and I hate it. Psych meds, you've packed on fifteen or twenty pounds over the course of two months. Salads be damned! And I practically live on salads, greens, veggies... Seriously, I do not know how much less I can eat without stopping eating altogether. Betcha I'd still gain weight if I quit eating. Grrr... How much of the weight gain is due to menopause? The weight gain really bums me out and balloons my bum. No, it is NOT funny!! Grrr... Should I quit the psych meds and be skinny but depressed? At least I'd look good. Oh, Woe Is Me! Woe! And there's Chocolate Moose Tracks ice cream sitting in the freezer, a virgin half-gallon, which I yearn to sully.

Pocket Shift from an Old Sheet: I posted about this briefly over at Refashion Co-op. Now here's the deal with the shift - I dyed the old sheet twice. The first time I used only one bottom of RIT Dye Black, and the cloth turned purple not black. Nice, but not great. So the second dye bath used RIT Dye Dark Brown and a half a bottle of black, and POW! The color punched up nice and rich. I'm happy with it. I added large pockets to the shift, plus I hand-stitched a silk tie around the neckline. The inspiration came from Annekata's page on Japanese tunics, which are simple yet adorable.
Albert 'photobombed' a couple times, for added charm.

from Gnarly Sweatpants, a fetching Black Beret

The black sweatpants are pilled, stretched, and just plain gnarly. What to do but a black beret?!!? I only used one leg, so there's plenty of fabric left to work with later. I took pictures and provide a step-by-step set of instructions for making the beret. Annekata's tutorial taught me how, so you might like to check out her guidelines.

Old Navy Jeans Refashion

Two years ago I weighed some 165 lbs., thanks to a change in medication. I ballooned and then the weight gain made me totally miserable. After I lost the weight by ditching the meds, I had cut into these Old Navy Jeans because they were too large... Well, my cutting flubbed and I stuffed them in a little closet. Early this morning I remembered them and so here you have it, a photo essay of a jeans to skirt refashion.

Voila! A normal length skirt
White leather belt fell in love with me at the Goodwill...

Side view with Doggie photobomb heh heh

Rear Window

My husband's Levi's were made into a fetching jeans skirt, which I wear at least once a week because it is so comfy. But - and I do mean butt - the left rear tore today and exposed my assets. No small children were here to see London, France, underpants...
So rather than do a traditional mend, I performed a purple strip. heh heh

Peek-a-boo! 

The Purple Strip: A touch of poetic nuance...

Now you see it! The Cheeky Purple Patch.

Making A Bell Hat ("Cloche"): A Dozen Photos

I traced the pieces from THIS pattern and followed THESE directions. So without further ado, the photos...

Hats & Cat

My daughter brought home a boy kitten, The Joker... Apparently, mine is the bosom of choice for lounging and purring on. My husband detests cats, but The Joker goes back to college with my daughter in a couple weeks so the tension isn't so bad.

Kitty helps me type this up...

Tunic Upcycle

A beige linen was so dull and boring I dyed it a rich dark brown. But... it never did fit properly thanks to  generously endowed, um, assets. Love the color, but I'd never wear the darned thing.

Remembering the two-tone skirt made mid-April, I dug out the bottom chopped hem of the blue knit. Then I chopped, pinned, and sewed a new tunic for myself! Woo-hoo! What's so great about it is that I can wear it any season, with or without a shirt underneath.

As a show of mercy, I promise to always wear it with shorts, leggings, or sweater tights because no woman my age should wear anything that short!

A Tale of Two Levi's, Part Two: The Quasi-Prairie Skirt

So who wants doggie friends? I don't, not when I'm eating bacon! Trust me: you do not want your dog's snout hovering near your bacon-bedecked plate. Grrr...

Friday's post tells the tale of how I made like a serial killer and vengefully wreaked havoc on two pairs Levi's with a pair of scissors: Slash, snip, and rip! You can see "before" photos of the virgin and unsullied innocents prior to the desecration.

Then I made an A-line skirt with one pair, and saved the other pair for today's more complicated (for me) project: A quasi-Prairie skirt. It's the Prairie skirt technique I'll be using, but the combination of cloths I chose are not "country-style" prairie. But hey, the photos will hopefully serve as a tutorial of sorts.

I Purloined My Husband's Jeans!

My husband's job buys work clothes for him annually; he has more work jeans than a body can wear! So I stole, I purloined a pair yesterday. They were hideous, anyway, and must have been several years' old because they are too small for him now. I feed him that well.
So I bleached the life out of these things, following the excellent bleaching and dying guidelines by The Little Giggler.

Blouse refashion & FAIL for fun

I've held on to this blouse (from a thrift shop) for several years because I liked the dark color and its small pattern.  But its cut makes a girl look too much like General MacArthur, what with the shoulder pads and sharpened sleeves:

Shoulder pads. Poofy sleeves. NO!! 

Sweatshirt to cardigan with my morning coffee

My 19 year old daughter bought me some lovely, fragrant coffee beans!! She visited my 22 year old up in Mt. Holyoke, Ma., where my eldest is a student in Russian. Those girls make me such a proud Mom. Brewing coffee begins my week with a huge grin, a delightful Sunday morning it is.

Re-newing a Re-fashioned Skirt

Did you ever have a not-quite "fail"? This overly long two-toned prairie skirt could have gone either way. Fortunately, with a little snipping and hemming it turned out even better than I thought it could - YAY!!

Way too long...

 

Mean Greenie

My step-daughter Diana gifted me her lovely Italian silk plaid blouse when she visited me in the hospital in July 2012. (My depression was so deep I took an overdose and woke up in the hospital a few days later. I stayed for a month.) My husband's love and concern acknowledged, he had no clue as to what things to bring me, especially clothes. Jeans? "Here, honey... yeah, they were my Dad's but..."
So I begged my daughters & my step-daughter to donate to The Clothes Cause. Now, I'm a full-busted lady, a "full-figured gal" a la Jane Russell or Sophia Loren. Perhaps young, very slim girls in their late teens and early twenties have different visions of what the "Older, Full-Figured" style might entail... Diana got it almost right, but the blouse just would not adapt and I tore it. Oops! Time for a summery style skirt and a photo essay on how to make it:

Making A Two-Tone Prairie Skirt

A friend known since second grade is like my sister: "Miss Jenny" lives in a huge country house in the Heldebergs and I'm just starting to recuperate from the weekend. No booze - I don't drink, never have - instead, we spent the time cooking and eating. Have you ever tried reading a book with lots of tiny print and multi-syllabic words? Never mind the book I was catching up on had one page of footnotes for every page of text: I was reading the excellent and worth-the-time book The Open Society and Its Enemies by Sir Karl Popper. Do you have a list of books you "mean to" read but never do? I finally pushed myself...
And now, on to the Two-Tone Prairie Skirt project:

Made it! Another maxi-skirt

My friend Jenny grew up with me; she and her husband own a huge old country manor in a rural New York village. Guess who is going to visit over the weekend? Yes, that would be me.

Prairie Skirt, Pt. 1: "My Bad" In the Middle of the Prairie

I started taking Abilify again after ceasing the second week in. But the depression came back full force so it seemed wise to either take Abilify (which does pull me out of the Darkness), or just succumb to suicidal ideation.

Oh, Hell, one of Abilify's side effects is that it increases production of prolactin (aka the breastmilk hormone). Yes, my 40D's are larger and I got my period for the second time in a week. Good thing my OB/GYN appointment is Wednesday: Hello, checking estrogen levels! So here I am, peri-menopausal, drugged up on psychiatric meds, and scarfing down chocolates to satisfy cravings. Oy vey is right!!

On to the Prairie Skirt Process... The final photograph shows "My Bad" - where I will have to go back and re-baste the black cloths to the ribbon, and then pin the ribbon to the denim all over again. BUT at least it's easy to do, just time-consuming.

Rachel Recommends...

The supply of denim in my home seems to breed. The piles of clothes left behind by my two beautiful daughters (college-ages 19 & 22), combine with baskets of jeans my husband wore throughout the course of his adult life - a male Pack-Rat. My husband's jeans' inseams runs between 34" - 36" longs and that means lots and lots of denim fabric for me to play with! Jim is 6'5", a former basketball player for Siena College in the 1970's. We are that old... 

Here are links to two recommended refashionistas:

Insomniac makes skirt

I quit Abilify and Ambien cold turkey on Sunday night; Thursday night (last night) I had wicked, wicked insomnia. Naturally those sweatpants just begged for a sex change! I did not take a "before" picture - you have all seen what an old, pilled pair of Hane's sweatpants look like. (If not, save your eyesight and don't bother... meh!) Without further ado:

Hand-stitched the inserts from a thin black tee... 2am!