pretty paper. true stories. {and scrapbooking classes with cupcakes.}

In school, the biggest sewing project I had to complete was a set of pockets designed to hold a reading book, notepad and pen on the edge of a bed by tucking a long tail of the pocket beneath the mattress. A nifty idea, perhaps, but it was ironing rectangles of fabric and sewing them together, and I can’t say I’d ever sat in bed really searching for a place to keep my reading book. So when a reader emailed me recently to say her daughter wanted to learn to sew things for herself but was finding her school sewing lessons a bit less than inspiring, I totally understood. She is thirteen and just getting to grips with the sewing machine, so I thought this might be a good starting project, as turning an old t-shirt into a new skirt is super easy, and you don’t even need elastic or a zipper. All you need is the shirt, plus scissors, thread, iron and sewing machine (or needle and patience). Plus an optional second piece of fabric for the waist of the skirt, if you prefer a contrast trim. In case it’s useful for you or someone you know, I’m posting it here too!

A few Sunday reminders: There are two giveaways that close tonight: the butterfly prize pack from Jenni Bowlin and the Acrylic Photo Block from your own picture. Today is also the last day to enter to win prizes for April’s 4×6 Photo Love challenge both here and at Two Peas. And you can vote or play along with Scrap Factor over at UKScrappers. Who knew it was such a busy day in the crafty world?! And now, on to the ridiculously easy skirt!

You’ll need a t-shirt to start. I had this shirt that has been bothering me – the very first time I wore it, tiny holes started to appear in the fabric. Clearly I fell for a bargain price that wasn’t actually a bargain. But all the holes were at the very top of the shirt, so it seemed something could be done from the rest of the fabric. Make do and mend, as it were! Start by making sure the work surface is clean (which seems obvious, but I can’t be the only person in the world you might have inked or misted on the same surface where they lay out their fabric? Oh. Maybe it is just me.) and iron the shirt to make it easier to cut and sew.

Cut straight across the shirt, right under the arms, so now you have a tube with an unfinished top edge. Go try it on. The bigger the shirt, the looser the skirt will be, of course. Unless you’re sewing this for someone quite young, you’ll probably find the top edge of the skirt is way too loose for the waist, even if it fits at the hips. Make a note of roughly how much you need to take in by pulling the fabric at the sides and marking the spot that would make it fit.

Then take the skirt off, turn it inside out and sew a diagonal line on both side seams that will take it in to a good size for the waist. You don’t want to make this too tight, since you’ll need to get the skirt on and off without a zipper (we’re going to add a tie to keep it snug while it’s on). Try it on again to see if it’s a good fit. If not, rip out those stitches and sew again. When you’re happy with the fit and you’re sure these stitches are secure, go ahead and cut off the excess fabric.

Next we’ll add a sash-styled waistband. For this, you can use a piece of contrast fabric or you can use the leftover fabric from the top of the t-shirt. You need a length that will go around your waist and tie. If a measurement will help, grab some string or ribbon and find your own waist + bow measurement! You can also decide how wide to make your waistband. The fabric will be folded in half, so cut a strip that is twice as wide as what you want. If you use a different piece of fabric, you may be able to cut this all in one strip. If you use the t-shirt leftovers or scraps of fabric, you’ll just need to patch and piece it together to make the length you need.

Fold the strip in half, right side out, and iron in a crease. You can also hem the very ends if you would like.

With the skirt and the sash right side out, find the centre of the sash and the front centre of the skirt. Pin the unfinished edges together, then pin around the edge of the skirt if you like. Jersey will curl around the unfinished edge, so either pin or go slowly while you sew to uncurl those edges.

Sew all the way around with a plain running stitch on your sewing machine. You’re sewing the unfinished edges together, right sides facing – the sash is going to fold up from this seam when you’re done. Leave an inch or two unstitched at the back centre of the skirt. That will let you pull in the waist of the skirt when you tie the sash.

Trim any loose threads and iron the waistband so the join of the two fabrics are smooth. And that’s the basic skirt done! Of course, you can further customise it with patches, bling, embroidered butterflies… whatever your style may be.

And if you have extra fabric left over from the top of your shirt? You can cut that up to create fabric flowers or an alice band or something else lovely to match your new skirt from your old t-shirt.

…and I’m not sure which is better: super easy projects or projects that work for both youngsters and grown-ups!

So… what have you been making this weekend?

xlovesx

Comment [15]

I have to admit I am really superstitious when it comes to baby presents, and making them or buying them or giving them too early just makes me extra nervous. Just one of those things. So with new nephew all arrived and fine and healthy and happy (yay!), I decided to have a bit of a crafty afternoon with a baby theme, including this quick and easy customisation of a onesie or babygro or whatever you prefer to call such a one-piece-garment-for-infants. For the record, spellcheck likes neither onesie nor babygro. Spellcheck is much happier with t-shirt, and should you like this idea but not have an infant available as your crafting muse, you can use the same steps to alter a t-shirt for yourself. So I figured I’d share a little how-to for this easy sewing project.

You will need the item you want to customise (onesie/babygro, t-shirt, etc), a handful of fabric scraps (soft fabrics are good), scissors and an iron. You’ll also need a sewing machine and thread, and a seam ripper and ruler may be helpful. If your fabrics are creased, be sure to iron everything before you start.

Start by cutting your fabrics to size. I am not big on measuring, so I just cut one to suit the pattern…

…then use it as a template to cut all the other pieces.

Line up the blocks in the order you like, and make sure this strip is wider than the garment you’re going to alter (you will lose a bit of length in the seams).

With a straight running stitch, sew all the pieces in the line. When you’re sewing the blocks, the right sides of the fabrics will be facing each other and you’ll be sewing looking at the wrong side of the fabric.

When you finish that, they will all be attached but they won’t be very flat.

Turn the strip over and iron from the back, pressing the seams apart.

Presto – now the patchwork strip is flat!

This step is optional – you can omit these stitches and the patchwork will still hold together, but I prefer the extra stitching on either side of the seam. It’s just a straight running stitch like everything else, about 1/8” either side of each seam.

Double check that the length is still plenty to go across the garment. If not, add another square or two and repeat the steps for ironing and stitching. Then we can start to alter the original item.

The patchwork strip will go immediately below the point where the bottom of the sleeve joins the body of the shirt. Turn the garment inside-out and use a seam ripper or your scissors to unpick the stitches below the sleeve, using the patchwork strip as a guide for when to stop unpicking. There is usually a locked stitch or heavier stitching at the join of the arm to the side seam. If you can, avoid unpicking that stitch, so you won’t lose any strength in that stretch point. (If you do, don’t panic – you can just stitch more later.)
Repeat on the other side seam.

Triple check that you are looking at the front of the garment – it’s easy to get mixed up since it’s inside-out! When you’re sure you have the front, cut a straight line from the middle of your unpicked stitching on one side right across to the other side.

Fold the fabric back to create the size of window you want for your patchwork strip. The window should be slightly smaller than your strip, since you’ll loose a little bit either side for the seam. Press the folds flat with the iron – this will make it much easier to sew the patchwork in a straight line.

Line up the patchworked strip with the top fold, with the right sides facing each other. The edge of the patchworked strip will be in line with the crease you ironed. You can pin this if you like – I am a bit of a disaster with pins so I try to avoid them if possible! What is worth remembering is the knitted fabric will stretch and your patchwork strip won’t, so pull the knitted fabric a little bit when you sew – not lots, just a bit. Use that same plain running stitch along this whole seam.

If you flip it right-side-out after you’ve sewn that seam, you can see it’s starting to look right! But go back to inside-out for now.

Line up the bottom crease with the bottom of the patchwork strip and sew again – right sides facing each other.

Check that there are no gaps in the stitching and iron this flat. You can trim back bigger pieces of fabric and get rid of long threads at this point too.

Turn it right-side-out and check that everything looks how it should. If so…

…we need to stitch those side seams back into place. Make sure to sew backward and forward at the end of each bit of stitching, since side seams need some strength. You can pull on the shirt to see if any holes appear. If they do, sew some more!

You can leave it just like this and call that finished…

…or you can go back and repeat the stitching 1/8” either side of the seams, like before. These stitches can be a bit wobbly since you’re sewing through all those seam bits on the other side, but they are actually the seams I love, wonkiness and all. (Clearly I would be fired from a garment sewing factory. And I also keep this a secret from my neighbour who is a retired quality control inspector and kept men’s shirt collars in check for many years, apparently!)

And that’s that! Completely unnecessary in life? Yes. But also fun and super inexpensive and the whole project took under an hour. So I think that makes it okay! Especially as now I can make sure at least once in my nephew’s life, he can be clothed in both astronauts, VW Beetles and 1970s mushrooms. Yes indeed.

So have you been doing anything crafty this Sunday? Do share!

xlovesx

Comment [13]

About two years ago, I found this dress in a sale somewhere ridiculously cheap and bought it. Then wore it approximately every third day. I love everything about it – it’s jersey, it’s not too short but not too long, it has ruffles and puckered sleeves, it works with long sleeves underneath or a cardigan over the top and it never needs ironing. I worried that I might wear it until it fell to pieces, but just around that time, I started to find it turning up on sale racks in other colours. So I also have this dress in black. And purple. And hot pink. And one that is not too far off in a dark turquoise. With all the ruffles on so many things in the shops right now, the little rows of ruffles here are still my favourite.

But while I have many empire-waisted jersey ruffle dresses in my wardrobe, I only have one white cardigan. It is a much loved light-weight cardigan and frankly, it’s looking a bit rough around the edges. Its days are numbered. So with an afternoon to work on something crafty, I took a little over an hour and made a new cardigan out of a t-shirt… all inspired by my favourite ruffle dress. So I just thought I’d share.

To create a ruffle cardigan, you need a shirt that will be the base of the cardi – I started with a light-weight white t-shirt to make something for summer, but you can just start with long sleeves or a heavier shirt for something warmer. (Or in fact, you could just add ruffles to an existing cardigan, but that is a whole other idea and I have no spare cardigans hanging about… but I do have some extra plain white t-shirts.) Then you’ll also need fabric for the ruffles themselves. I had another white t-shirt that I used for this – it just happened to be in my bag of offcuts because it had a big snag in it that really made it pretty useless as a shirt. So you can use a second shirt or you can use anything else you would like – plain jersey fabric or something more colourful if you prefer. If you want the cardigan to close, you’ll need a button (or a hook and eye or some ribbon to tie). And you’ll need fabric scissors, thread to match your fabric and your sewing machine. Pretty basic, so even if you bought two brand new t-shirts, this can be well under £10, assuming you already have your tools.

Straight away you get to be brave: cut right through the t-shirt. You can measure to the middle if you like, but jersey is really forgiving, so I just folded in half to make a crease in the centre, then cut along the crease. You can even try it on at this point to get an idea of how it will drape with the neckline and hem of the t-shirt.

Hem the raw edges you just created at the front. If you have an overlocker, you can serge those edges and feel amazingly cool! I don’t have an overlocker. So I just roll the fabric back a bit and run a straight stitch along the length. Either will work.

IF you want to add a button to the top of the cardigan, do that NOW. Before the ruffles. I didn’t think that through, so you’ll see all of this from here on out with the ruffles and no button. But when I got to sewing the button hole, the ruffles were in the way and causing a nightmare and I had to unpick a whole ruffle to make room for the buttonhole foot. You are smarter and more prepared. You will add your button and buttonhole now, before you do anything with ruffles. Oh yes you will.

To make the ruffles, you need six lengths of fabric about an inch wide. I cut these from the bottom of the second t-shirt, and I first cut away the bottom hem and sat that aside (we’ll come back to that later). Then I cut three strips from the bottom of the shirt, so I had three hoops of fabric – each about an inch wide.

Cut the side seams from the three hoops – which should leave you with six strips. You don’t need the seam pieces.

To make a ruffle from each strip, you need to sew a running stitch down the middle of each piece – but you want a long stitch length. Every machine looks different, but there should be something to change the length of the stitch – mine is that plus and minus below the screen, to the right. The longest stitch setting for my machine is 5.0 and that works just fine.

Then you just want to stitch right down the middle of each piece. Leave plenty of thread at both ends. Jersey has a natural curl to it, and I find it easiest to sew straight if I stitch so the curl is going up around the presser foot rather than the other way, as that tends to twist too much.

Now take your stitched strip and separate the two threads at one end. Pull one thread and push the fabric down the thread to gather it. Hey presto – a ruffle!

Continue until everything is pretty and as even as ruffles can be. It will look something like this.

Do that for all six strips so you have six ruffles, all the same length. I leave all the threads in place until the end so the ruffles don’t come undone. If you have ends that want to relax as soon as you let go, you can tie or twist the threads at the end to hold the ruffle.

Now place them on your shirt. The shirt to which you have already added a button and buttonhole, if you’re going to do that. Right.
Now all the ruffles are the same length but the neckline is angled or curved rather than being straight and square, so as you line up the ruffles with the neckline, they will appear to be different lengths. Pin the ruffles at the top and bottom, as it’s hard to see what’s straight on the cardigan while you’re sewing it. Much easier to see it on the table.

Then put your stitch length back to something normal and you’re going to stitch right over the centre of each ruffle to attach it to the cardigan. I started each ruffle by tucking it under against the trim that was already on the collar – or you could take it right to the edge of the shirt if you prefer. If the other ruffles get in the way of your sewing line, unpin them for now but go back to laying the shirt flat and pinning each one before to sew it on. I’m really not overly fond of sewing with pins, but I found them pretty necessary here.

After you sew the first three, it’s also worthwhile to fold the cardigan in half and see if the other side is still going to line up right, in case anything moved from the original pinning. Easier to adjust now then after you have sewn all six.

And hey there: now you have a ruffle cardigan! You can add more to it if you want ribbons to close it or beads in the ruffles or anything fancy like that… or just leave it plain.

I had some scraps left over so I cut one more ruffle from the spare t-shirt fabric and a ruffle from some black polka dot fabric, then rolled them into a circle and secured with lots of (messy) stitching. Then added some tulle and a button on top. And stitched that to the discarded hem of the t-shirt…

to make something to tie in my hair.

And here is a cheesy picture of me wearing both. I’m not sure I would wear them both together, because it may make me look a little like I’m twelve. Maybe, maybe not. But awww, new cardigan and new penny blossom made with just stuff wasting space in my wardrobe? That is not cheesy at all. I kinda love that.

I also kinda love the new magazine Mollie Makes. More than kinda, really.

And Mollie Makes loves ruffles. There’s a whole article about it in their first issue.

If you haven’t checked it out yet – you should totally take a look. Very pretty, very crafty and very stylish. It’s not my project or anything – it’s edited by Jane Toft, who did all the prettiness of the idea book series I worked on last year, so I’ve been excited to see her newest work. If you like handmade, vintage and lovely design, you may very well love it too. It just came out in UK stores last week and hits US stores in June, I think. (If you’re in the UK, you can get a three issues for £5 deal at the moment, which is cool too.)

Now… which colour of ruffle dress to wear tomorrow? Decisions, decisions…

xlovesx

PS: The owl giveaway is still open until midnight tonight and all the Scrapbooking Day challenges close tonight too, so you have a few hours left to enter and win!

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