Recycling Shoes? Why yes of course!

Why am I wearing two different shoes?

Well, I'm actually not! I made the one on the left out of the partner from the other one! Not that I didn't like the blue polka-dotted ones, no - in fact, I liked them so much, that they ended up looking like this:

Yikes!!
Turn something bad into something good? Yes, of course!

Dress Shirt goes Fashion! (With step-by-step)

Hello everybody! I hope you are having a great summer!

Well I am finally back, after lots of work and some vacation, and I got around to doing another refashion for refashion co-op.

I got this old - but good-quality - dress shirt from my husband, really too good to throw away, and I needed some short-sleeve tops for myself anyway. But of course I thought what probably most of you are thinking: another men's dress shirt refashion, just cutting off sleeves and collar and turning it into a women's short-sleeve blouse? Yawn! 

A bit of brainstorming later I came up with this so-simple twist. One thing I learned: Less is more, most of the time. So I went for ONE eye-catcher on this one:

It sports a cute "cut-in" shape sleeve (as opposed to "cut-outs"....). The "sleeve" being just the yoke from the men's shirt, left entirely "intact", in front as well as in the back:

What is great about this re-fashion is that it gets rid of the parts that usually are worn down most in men's shirts: Collar, cuffs, and even the arm-pits will be cut away if you are using a shirt that is way too big on you...

It was almost too simple to give a step-by-step, but here goes:

How to make (lined!) Espadrilles: Full Tutorial!

Finally, home-made Espadrilles - DONE!

...and it really wasn't a difficult thing at all! I had the soles already made - see my post HERE, and my video-tutorial on YouTube.

These are definitely more than house-shoes, since I added some rubber soling to make them durable.
All the tools/materials you need are these:

A Green Dream - my first draped dress...

Yes, I do wish I went about things more systematically sometimes... To choose a very luscious, expensive silk for a first draping project might not have been the most reasonable thing... However, I have discovered that I work much better on the spur of the moment, the whatever-the-heck I feel like doing in a given moment, and that can barely ever be planned.

In my defense though: I DID buy and watch the draping classes from Paul Gallo over at Craftsy, as well as the "Sewing with Silk" class with Linda Lee - both highly recommendable.

This came out

Home-made Fabric Sandals, with full Tutorial!

 

No, I don't really want to say goodbye to summer yet... So I made this pair of sandals... it's a surprisingly quick project and I am giving you a full video tutorial on it... The other side of the world is just getting to the warm season after all!

You don't need any specialty materials, I had most of it at home, or got it from a normal DIY/hardware store.

A Shirt and a Skirt getting married... (with step-by-step)

Here it is, this months contribution to the refashion co-op!

I had this skirt in my closet for a long time, having only worn it once. It was really pretty and all, just not the right length for me, and gaping a lot at the waist (see picture below). And then there was this top which was such a perfect fabric match - they were just meant for each other:

Oh let's just have a little more fun! Here goes:

Linen Remake - with tutorial / how-to!

Summer is here! As much as I'm starting to get into sewing quick t-shirts from jersey (tutorial coming up!), the best thing to wear on a hot day is loose linen or silk tops. This shirt was handed down to me from my generous husband (who dislikes the fast wrinkling...). It was in good shape, just -well- a man's cut and size...

I know pin-tucks are usually placed closer to the center, but I didn't want to take off the collar and I needed to get rid of some excess width on the shoulders anyway, so I placed them further out than normal. I think it adds a lovely twist with them going over the shoulder and all the way down the back...

It was a quick project and gave me the chance to finally start using some of those pressure feet I never use, as well as some specialty stitches from my machine.

The Promise of Summer!

This dress is exactly what I needed now. No, not because I can actually wear it right away - for summer hasn't arrived yet where I live (Vienna). Indeed, it is so cold that I almost made a fire yesterday evening. But this dress has a promise, a hope, and even a special purpose for warmer weather. I will be wearing it for my next opening night - it will be on July 18th, a summer festival, and I shall be twirling in it like in the photo at the end of the post. Summer HAS to arrive until then!

I did not make this from scratch. My aunt gave it to me and it looked like this:

Shoe Shortage! Making Soles for House Shoes

Finally, here comes my next post about learning how to make shoes! In case you have missed my previous ones, I am using this great old booklet from around the time of the first world war, it's German and called "Die Schuhnot", which can be translated to "Shoe Shortage".

Upon great request from my YouTube subscribers, it can now be downloaded as a pdf file from the side bar on my blog!

The booklet is in German, but I am going through everything, step by step, so you can also just follow my blog and you won't miss a thing, I promise!
I am also going by a second booklet, from around the same time, which is almost identical, except for a few extra things, which I am also including in my posts.

The Amadeus Coat

How to turn a two piece costume into a coat....
Here is my newest Re-fashion! I have actually finished it a few weeks ago and am proud to say that I am wearing it almost daily, so this one definitely goes into the book of successes! :-)

It started out as a wool costume, which I had bought at the flee market for a ridiculous amount of 5 Euros... It's a fabulous herringbone pattern wool in turquoise and purple! Swoon!

Here is the before and after:

 It was too big for me, and in general I just would have never worn it this way, so please forgive me for cutting into it...

T-Shirt Refashion-Extravaganza! Grand Finale - Full Tutorial/How-To!

Here is the grand finale of my T-Shirt Refashion Extravaganza: Made from small scraps of jersey, and some crepe added for the skirt parts:

As you see, I made two versions, slight improvements and variations between them. And yes, it comes with a full how-to/tutorial!

The differences are the sleeves versus a neck holder, the different hight for the waist, and a small change on how I put together the skirt. I will give you both options in the tutorial, so lets get right to it!

Summer in the City: Tutorial, free pattern, how-to!

Here it is, the how-to for this great summer dress:

If you'd like to see more pictures of it first, I posted plenty HERE!

What you need:

Summer in the City: Dress Showcase

Readers, I hope you agree that it was worth the wait - here is my new free pattern, as promised!

From what I hear on the news, Vienna isn't the only city writing record highs this week...

It's amazing how much more bearable it is if you are dressed appropriately... Well, this dress makes me love the summer!

This post is only the showcase of the dress - you find the tutorial, free pattern, how-to for it HERE!

Making Moccasins! With full How-To...

MOCCASINS DIY..

The Cast:

• A Wife
• A Husband

My "Pillow Cape"!

Nope, it is not a misprint, I really mean Pillow CaPe. Because well, it used to be a Pillow Case, and it is now a Cape. *Grin*

 This is my contribution to the refashion co-op, a bit late, I apologize. Not only have things been crazy in my "real life", I have also been away from the sewing machine AND from any decent internet connection. So the few things I DID make, I haven't posted about. Sometime later this month everything should calm down.

The 1938 Dress: Tutorial Snap Button Closure

Here it is, the last post about the making of my 1938 dress, and what you see in the picture below is the side with the button closure:

Nice, right? Actually so much better than a zipper!

Normally, I would have opted for a zipper, for whatever reason. I guess I would have found it too much of a hassle to sew snap buttons and I am more familiar with sewing zippers. However, my decision to look up this technique also had to do with my mission of using up my stash/notions/whatever-clusters (I have TONS of snap buttons, but NEVER the right zipper at hand), as well as kneeling myself deeper into the real reason why I sew vintage - to LEARN stuff...

Slashing that Stash: Bathroom Rug Tutorial!

Ta-Daaaa, here is a great project to get rid of a bunch of fabric in your stash:

It's a rug made from fabric braids, I made mine for the bathroom. It's really quite simple to make, and what I love about it is that you can incorporate fabrics in your stash that you wouldn't know what else to do with anymore otherwise. You know, the sales-bin fabric that upon closer inspection is a really nasty synthetic fiber, not suitable for a garment. Or the one that looks different in daylight, or the left-overs from a garment, for which you bought twice the amount than you actually needed. You get my point.

The only thing you should think about is that you can wash it in the end - so no fabrics that bleed heavily or that aren't washable. Make sure you pre-wash all the fabrics, too.

How-To: Make the Bodice for the suit-refashion Overall

Welcome to my second How-To post for how I turned my Husbands old suit into the overall below!

And what perfect timing for the "Sew Grateful" series, happening over at My Happy Sewing Place, which truly is right up my alley :-)

Not only am I sew grateful that my husband gave me the suit (he has learned to give me just about everything that remotely resembles fabric before throwing it away), I have also used thread, needles and a rotary cutter that my mom has given me, and I am also ever sew grateful for the on-line sewing community, which really has kicked off my sewing hobby to a new level. I have learned so much from the many sewing-bloggers out there, thank you ever so much. I can only hope that the one or other project/tutorial on my blog will inspire others, too!

In the first How-To post HERE I showed you how to fit the pants, today we will fit the jacket to make the bodice. Of course, depending on the suit you are starting out with, and also depending on your shape, things might be a bit different. However, I think these steps should get you there in most cases, if the initial fit of the suit matches the description in my first post (basically, it just really has to be too big)...

How-To: Turn Men's suit pants into Women's slacks

The jumpsuit-how-to post 1 is all about how I fitted the pants. You can use this tutorial by itself just to fit pants, or you continue on to the jacket post to make the whole overall (Link is at the bottom of this post)...

So I started out with a dull grey suit... You want to make sure that the collar still looks good enough for you to want to wear, as well as the sleeve cuffs... Generally, the whole suit still needs to be in pretty good condition.

The 1938 Dress: Tutorial basting and setting in Sleeves

Here we go, today I'll show you how I first basted in, then set in the sleeves I so nicely prepared yesterday. I'll also explain the whole point of basting sleeves a bit later in the post:

Again, I am using the book from 1935 as a reference. It is a fairly small book, but there is so much information in it!

 This illustration is our reference for the basting: