Halter top

I've decided to add a few things I made over the summer. This was the easiest shirt ever-- it's just a sundress cut down to shirt length and hemmed. (It wasn't all that long to start with, which was part of the problem!)

It also tied around the neck, which is a sensation I can't stand, so I changed it to regular straps. I had to fiddle with the placement along the back to get the straps more or less in line with my bra straps.

Screen printing

Last night was the fourth session of my screen printing class, and I finally feel like I understand the process. Watch this space for the decorations and ink splotches soon to appear on everything.

The biggest challenge: choosing a design from the thousands of possibilities.
What first? A yoga shirt? Something funny about knitting? Last night I burned a scan of a 45-record spindle. I can't wait to print it!

Crazy dog lady

Camera pouch

This is a pouch I made out of an old, felted sweater from the Goodwill. It's lined with a scrap from a pink corduroy shirt a friend gave me in a box of scraps.

I think I used a pattern I saw at Molly Chicken's blog, which I love love love, but I can't find it so I'm perplexed. It was a basic box shape, blanked stitched up by hand with pink embroidery thread. I added the lining later.

It's just the right size for our camera. That was a lucky accident. I didn't have anything in mind for it when I made it. That's how I roll.

Charlie Brown shirt

I made another recycled t-shirt.

For this one, I used Butterick 3030. It takes a lot of imagination to see the potential in this pattern.

I chopped up two t-shirts that I thought went together fairly well. Again, I salvaged the original neck band, though this time I had to actually sew it back on.


In this pattern, "small" means large. I consider myself medium.

Also, I remembered that I am long-waisted. So my edits to this pattern include putting a big, ugly dart in the sleeve (hard to make out in this picture, but believe me, it's there) and grafting in a big old stripe from the other shirt. Hence the Charlie Brown title.

Still, a wearable shirt.

Scrappy tote and pouch

This is another project made from scraps.

I started with a long, skinny scrap of ‘60s flowered upholstery fabric that I loved. I paired it with some blue pinwale cord that had previously been a jumper, I think. I just made a simple square bag—no pattern, just going by how much fabric I had.

The bag’s lining is the fabric left from an apron, and the handles are a thrift-store belt that I trimmed the hardware off and chopped in half.

I made the unlined zipper pouch to use up every last scrap of that great fabric. The stripe goes the other way-- that's just because it was easier to sew it up that way. The zipper is from my stash of thrift-store zippers—I pick them up any time they cost 25 cents or less.

Boden rip-off shirt

This is another top I ripped off shamelessly from the Boden catalog. (Boden's version at left) Again, I found a close-enough-to-the-shape pattern during a 99-cent sale at JoAnn's, then scoured my stash for two prints that went together relatively well. The upper piece is a purple with tiny white dots-- fabric that was once a kitchen curtain. The bottom is some vintage stuff from a garage sale, I think.



(This is the pattern I used-- Butterick 3385. I picked version "C" version shown in green in the lower right)












Mimicking the Boden shirt, I used contrasting bias tape on the neck and sleeves, but after wearing the shirt, I decided to turn it to the inside and topstitch it under. I like this one enough that I made another version in "good" fabric after tweaking the pattern a little, but it turned out too small. Sadly, I had to give it away.

I did not try to mimic the Boden model pose in this picture. I'm just naturally elegant.

Heart shirt

I turned a plain, boring old XL t-shirt into a cute fitted medium one.

First, I took an old XL t-shirt and cut it down, using a 99-cent snug-looking juniors t-shirt pattern from a JoAnn's sale (McCall's 5105). I positioned the pattern to keep the original neckband & sleeve topstitching intact.

Then I sewed it back up, using a tiny zig-zag stitch for stretchability. Luckily this photo is blurry, or you would see how wrinkly the sleeve caps turned out. I ended up with extra ease, so the tops of the shoulders are a little pleated. We'll call it a design detail and move on.


Next, I shamelessly lifted a design from the Boden kid's catalog and cut a stencil out of freezer paper. After ironing the stencil down and stuffing the shirt with cardboard, I dabbed white fabric paint in the negative spaces.

Voila! A new cute t-shirt that fits.