Fab Coat Now Wearable!

Here it is, my February contribution to the Refashion co-op!

I would say there are two categories of refashion projects:

1. The ones you make out of items that are just not fashionable anymore the way they are.
2. The ones you make with garments that don't fit anymore (or that need mending...).

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...

The 1938 Dress: Making the skirt

On we go, today, we are making and adding the skirt!

This is not a real tutorial post, but I wanted to show you how this pattern works. I find it quite interesting, as there is a bunch of gathering right in the center front of the skirt, which adds nice width, while keeping the silhouette narrow from front and back. I actually sewed a vintage pattern with this kind of skirt before, but I altered it back then, because I couldn't imagine that this bunching up right between my legs would work out... :-) This time, I went for it, and I like the result!

The 1938 Dress: Finished! Vote and Win!

If you are here to vote and win, just scroll down to the second half of the post! :-))

So this is the finished dress from my 1938 magazine:

Broken Zipper Solution: From "Oh-No!" To "Oh-Yes!"

Broken Zippers are the worst. Even more so if they break on a piece of clothing you love, and double that if you made it yourself and just finished it... It so happened on my beloved Panda-Hug-Cape posted HERE
With the facing and bias-tape binding it would have been such a pain to take the zipper out and put a new one in, so I was in need of a clever plan B. It came to me, and it's one of those super easy solutions that one fails to see sometimes. At least I think so. I simply attached the new one to the old one, adding a bit of zipper coolness...:

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)...

Slashing that Stash...: Envelope Cushions How-To

Welcome to my new Guest-Bed/Sofa:

Well, the actual guest-bed isn't new, but I finally got around to making pillow-covers for it. I decided I needed to do some drastic diminishing of my fabric stash, and that is the first of a few projects that I came up with for that purpose.