t-shirt redesign, part 2, steps 4-7

blogger wouldn't let me add any more photos on the last post, so here is post #2 with the rest of the steps! And my camera died halfway through this, so forgive the lack of photo of the final project...

Pin facing to front of shirt (facing is another piece of fabric that will end up on the inside of the garment to stablize and help keep shaping) - This facing came from another white t-shirt that was stained so I didn't mind cutting it all up:















Draw in shaping with water erasable marking pen (I wanted my shirt to have kind of a keyhole v-neck, but you could do a boat-neck, scoop-neck, true v-neck, or whatever you would like), then stitch about 1/4" to 1/2" away from edging and shaping drawing:















After stitched, clip and trip away excess fabric:















Turn facing to the inside, pin again and stitch about 1/4" away from finished edge to hold in place. I added some decorate ruffles around the edges, but it looks good plain too.

T-shirt Redesign part 1, steps 1-3

One cute and easy way to remake a t-shirt is to redo the neckline! I bought a cheap t-shirt from Walmart for $3 in the men's section and changed the neckline. Below are the steps to complete this transformation:

Before:
















Cut off the ribbing at the neckline:
















Pull the existing stabilizer strip over the raw edge of the back of the neckline and pin:















Stitch the back of the neckline down:

Sewing Fashion Show

During the summer I took a sewing class at school. At the end of the semester, one of our final assignments was to participate in a fashion show. Below are pictures of a couple of the items I made:

Brooke modeling the plaid shirt-dress:





























Brooke modeling her purple circle skirt:

retro apron & matching oven mitt

For my niece's upcoming bridal shower I made her a retro-style apron in her favorite colors with a matching oven mitt. The blue fabric features owls (which she loves). She loves to bake and so I hope she gets a lot of use out of these!

Clothing Labels

One of my favorite things about taking sewing at Dixie this summer has been designing and embroidering my own labels for the clothes I make! I made 41 (hopefully I'll make that many things to put these labels in!). The design process led me to come up with the name for this blog...

The roll of labels stitched, threads trimmed, and backing trimmed and ready to be cut out:
















My stack of ready-to-use labels in a variety of colors! Some are all white and ready to go in temple/baptism items:

Brooke's mini bedding

While Kara was busy with her crafting, Brooke got into the scrap bag and started hand-stitching cute mini bedding items! Brooke loved having sewing time on the big sewing machine! :)


Front of Brooke's mini quilt (all hand-stitched, then we took it to the machine to reinforce):




















Back of Brooke's mini quilt (machine stitched to the front & batting, then machine quilted together):




















Mini pillow (handstitched and stuffed):
















Kara's stuffies in Brooke's bedding (and you can see the hand-stitched blanket Brooke made too):

Kara's stuffies

Kara has tried to keep herself busy this summer with sewing and crocheting (among other things).

The two teddy bears were self-designed on paper, traced onto the fabric, then sewn together on the machine. She then turned them right-side-out, stuffed them, and whip stitched them closed. She embroidered the faces on with DMC floss. So cute!

The giraffe pattern came from a pattern book, but the colors are all Kara!


Here are pictures of some of the crafts she's come up with:


Teddy:




















Spotty:





















Pinky: