7 Shirts. The Shirt Skirt. or Skirt Shirt.. oh now I'm confused.

It's holidays, and my number one priority this holidays was to go to several Op-Shops and get stuff to refashion. On my mind were several projects which involved cutting men's shirts to pieces! Yay! On Monday I headed to Salvos, Lifeline, Vinnies and a few others and spent just $20 buying 7 men's shirts - and a women's long sleeved shirt which I'm DYING to cut up for Moo but I can't think of what to do with it just yet.

My pretty shirts! Oh I have plans for you!

Today I decided to get cutting, despite the fact that I can't find my rotary cutter and without it I'm pretty useless at cutting straight lines. (It survived The Move, but it didn't survive the "Let's Clean Up Before The Birthday Party" - I remember seeing it, I don't remember where I put it.) I chose to start with the red one in the centre. It was going to make a pretty skirt.

I had seen this shirt-skirt floating around Pinterest and decided to give it a go. I loved the arms belt but didn't end up incorporating it into my skirt for 2 reasons - firstly my girth did not allow it (sad) and secondly when I tried to fashion the arms to even LOOK like a belt, my son told me it looked silly.
Here's how I did it.

First up I unpicked the sleeves. You can skip this, in fact in hindsight if I -had- skipped it I may have had my belt as I could've cut it straight across.. but anyway. I unpicked them and it took me forever.

Almost wanted to keep it as a vest.

 Then I cut straight across from armpit to armpit. A bigger shirt could've been cut in an a-line from higher if the skirt needed to be longer. (from armpit-armpit it fell just above my knees)

I miss you, rotary cutter.

I sewed down the button line to prevent any gaping opening, unbuttoning etc and then took off that top button.

I was able to sew white on the white line to camouflage it a bit.

Then I made the waistband by doing little more than making a case and threading some elastic through.

Love my cute pins. Problem is, my kids love them too.

And I'm done!

Cute, quick!

But then I came inside to see this ....

Oh Cobes, you are cute, but I think I can come up with a more permanent solution.

Using this tutorial from Green Kitchen (and without destroying another pair of pants, just traced around) I used the sleeves from the shirt and quickly whipped him up some new, very rough, PJ pants. Awesome!

Pretending he's asleep. Because that's what you do in PJ pants.

 I'm not sure what, if anything, I'll do with the top part of the shirt.. but I would really like to say I used the whole lot ;)

1 shirt refashion down, 6 to go! :D

I'm Back. And so is my SewJo.

Hello blog, bloggers, bloggees and bloggerverse,

I'm back! :D Are you excited? I am! It's been a long few months and a lot of stuff has happened since I last dusted off the sewing machine and sat down at the table.

Firstly, we moved house! That's a bit exciting, it does, however, mean a little less space so I wasn't able to set up my sewing machine straight away. There IS a room outside which will be perfect for the machine and I... but that's going to take a bit of setting up.

Secondly, I have finished my Diploma course. This is what ruined my SewJo in the first place. Rassenfrassen braincells being stripped for some piece of paper. But the close of study for the course is Monday next week and I'm waiting, patiently, for my final assignment to be marked. Confident that I've passed that one.

Thirdly, I've lost a bit of weight. This is actually important because firstly I'm super proud of myself, and secondly it relates directly to what I've sewn today.

And here it is.
I have a skirt. This skirt, I'm pretty sure, can be found in hundreds of photos of me (if I had allowed photos to be taken) I liked it, it was versatile and comfortable. I had it for years. But then something happened, my "Thirdly" - I lost weight. I lost so much weight that it made wearing my favourite skirt impossible. Sad, I know. I thought about what I could do - Could I just take it in? Well the hem WAS all tatty, yes I could fix that.. but I didn't know if taking it in would even work. Could I just eat enough Big Macs to put back on the weight I lost? Yes, yes I could.. but will I? Probably not, I am enjoying being less... big. Could I keep it in my drawer until I found motivation to do something? Absolutely.
And that motivation came to me today in the form of a Pin. A French woman's blogged post, with a skirt repurpose was pinned and so I repinned, as you do, and then I wondered - did I need a wool skirt or is this what I can do with my favourite skirt?

Dodgy photo of The Skirt

So this afternoon my husband cleared a desk and I went to the wardrobe and pulled out my sewing machine, beautiful shiny machine she is, within an hour and a half I'd sewed, unpicked and hemmed the armholes and neckholes - I had a pretty little top :D

I was never good at posing for photos...

And I really do like it :D It's comfortable and, maybe it could be versatile ;) Just as it was! And it was easy peasy.
I'll have to keep and eye our for woolen skirts when I next am on the hunt for things to repurpose, because I'd LOVE a more flowy, wintery number.

I'm going to do a lot more repurposing, I've decided. It's something I really enjoy and I am LOVING doing it.