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!!

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.

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.

What I'm Wearing Today

Just a quick post on a linen skirt I dyed. I find I am actually wearing clothes I refashioned! Held on to this skirt for years, and rarely wore it. Now I love it!

What I'm Wearing Today

Earlier in the month I posted about this two-colored skirt.

A windy day, I want to dye my hair red, red, & more red!!

• Granny boots: Thrifted
• "Lagenlook" skirt I made 
• Thrifted knit black top
• My daughter beaded the necklace

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.

What I'm Wearing Today

The $5 Macy's Clearance skirt used to be a bright powder blue with bright green palm tree design on linen... I used RIT Black & RIT Brown dyes mixed together and transformed the linen to a more subtle design. Easy!

Adding length to a short skirt

I adore this Ann Taylor cotton skirt because it fits beautifully at the waist and hips BUT it is too damned short! It is inappropriate to wear above-knee skirts with naked legs in the summer at my dignified age. Other women might be able to carry it off - and well, too. But I am no Barbara Eden or Joan Collins...

The Beast & I at play!

The Yellow Maxi-Skirt

In an earlier post, I put up photos and wrote about dying old blue jeans to yellow, using RIT Lemon Yellow.

What I'm Wearing Today

Wearing my yellow maxi with

• Thrift store white knit top
• Sanita yellow clogs with wood heels

Adding length to an above-knee skirt

• My kid's X-Small Charlotte Russe top 
• $1.00 Goodwill black above-the-knee skirt, size 10 (my size)

Easy and cute "Upcycle" for this Mom whose knees are the
National Treasure hee he

Prairie Skirt, Pt. II

Wearing my new Prairie Skirt with my floral Doc's!!

TIP:
I hand-stiteched my ribbon+fabrics through the Rear pockets,
by sticking one hand inside the pocket so
I didn't stitch all the way through it,  

What I'm Wearing Today

The Insomnia-Borne Skirt

*Not shown: Floral Dr. Marten's (what else?)*
Thrifted tee-shirt dyed from puce to dark lilac 
As a sort of "re-mix," I turn the tee around and wear it backwards: It looks like a 'boatneck' collar in front.
That floral design made of cheap polyester "lace" gives off a hairy-chest look when worn 'correctly'. 
My 19 year old daughter approves!!

Good Morning!!

"On the back-burner" is the next denim refashion, a prairie skirt. Sincerely, Kinsey posted a terrific Prairie Skirt DIY, a "for dummies" that one may follow with confidence. Oh, Prairie skirt, how charming thou art! I love longer skirts because they permit one to stomp-walk and to wear one's floral Dr. Martens with impunity. Short skirts allow the unforgiving lady-saunter which is to say, not at this stage in the game of life!

24 oz. Latte in a cobalt blue mug! Woo-hoo! 

Velour: Tacky to Sexy

Why must all junk accumulate on my dining room table? Sewing clutter hell in the dining room: Is it my destiny, "Whom the gods would destroy, they would make insane?!!?" I need to set up my sewing machine to finish up that Levi's midi skirt, as I've done all I can by hand. Besides, my husband needs more chores on his Honey-Do List.