Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Staying with fleece...

As I mentioned in the earlier post: I need more sportsclothes. Preferably something that comes close to my beloved green fleece vest. I spotted this DIY clothing magazine with a lovely hoodie on the front cover. I fell instantly in love and decided that I was gonna make it.





I did not want a two-way zip though, and I wanted fleece (for obvious reasons by now). It was gonna be easy just to cut the zip straight at the hemline, instead of the curve in the pattern. I thought the vest had a lot of seams, but it turned out they "cheated" and have sewn a lot on with a coverstitch. I do not own a coverstich machine, but my normal sewing machine can fake an overlockstitch and that would be good enough for me :-)

To get the nice 'coverstitch' hems I just used a fleece blanket that was already finished this way. The blanket has cost me 3 or 4 euro once, don't remember. I have a pile of fleece blankies, but this was the only one with the nicely finished edge.




So, I cut out the pattern pieces, made the hoodie and am very happy with it!
(sorry for the crappy pictures, but my digital camera is an 8-year-old-first-generation digital camera)

Monday, January 29, 2007

The first refashion from a new refashionista!

Next to making irish dancing dresses, I actually dance as well. I have so many classes during the week, that I am always behind doing the laundry. I need more sportsclothes! After dancing I need to keep myself warm and sweaters or fleece vests are perfect for that. I have one dark green fleece vest I absolutely love, and I have been walking around with a plan to make more fleece items for a long time now...

So, nothing better than the present! I found this huge fleece sweater from my boyfriend (I think). It is very big, he never wears it, and it's fleece....perfect! (I put my yardstick on that thing to show how big it actually is....that is over 55 cm you see there).
Anyway, I have been visiting the boards from craftster and I can show you how those refashionistas regularly tackle a project like this.


First: cut off the sleeves.
Second: put an item that fits you on top of your hugely oversized shirt/sweater and draw out the curves of your sleeve armholes and sides and/or hemline.







Third: cut new shape, overedge and sew all hemlines, sew sides.
Fourth: adjust sleeves to accomodate new armhole, sew sleeves, set in sleeves.

Last: make a nice piccy showing everyone your new and cute clothing item :-)



The machines that will make it happen

I make irish dance dresses...For those of you who know nothing about this: you will need a good machine. So, I am proud to announce I am the owner of a Janome 6500P.
Is it a good machine? YES! :-)
It was a huge investment for me and I want to use it for more than only irish dance dresses, which is also the reason I am taking the pledge.


To make my life in irish dance costuming easier, I recently bought a serger too.
Will it make my life easier? Again, YES!
I have only had it in the house one day and played with it, but I can see the enormous joy it will bring me. So, bring on the patterns I never used, crack open the boxes of fabric... I am ready to go!

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Taken the pledge

I will take the 2 months pledge. Let's see if I can keep it up!

"I pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 2 months. I pledge that I shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovoated, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that my thriftyness brings! "

Signed,
Caroline.