Make a skirt bigger - thrifting-sewing tutorial

What? Sewing tutorial from me? Well, yes, I thought I would give it a try and we will see how it goes. :)

I really like thrift stores and I have often praised the ones in Sweden, there are lots of lovely things in the so called "loppis" shops. Unfortunately, used clothes are quite rare, and in the charity shops they are not too cheap. At least not if you still have to do some work with them so that you can wear them.
Anyway, last Saturday I managed to buy a skirt for only 10 crowns (about 1,20 Euros or 1,50 dollars). I loved the fabric and thought if I can't use it as a skirt I can always cut it up for quilting.

The skirt was way too small at the waist, but then I found a way to sort things out. And it took me about half an hour.

(Just in brackets: I love the many thrifting-recycling-refashioning blogs out there. But most of them follow the same pattern: buy something for the fabric, something that is too big for you and make it smaller. I however find it difficult to buy things that are too big for me.)

I have tried to make a pun once, when I upcycled my old cardigan, and I will repeat it again, perhaps someone will like it this time: up-cycle can mean UP a size :D. So here is how to make a skirt, that is too small for you, bigger.

The skirt needs to be long enough, and flaring out at the bottom. That means if you cut off the top part, it should still be a good length, but the new topline will be much wider.

Here is the skirt I bought:



It had a line of buttons on the front. I tried the skirt on and checked where is the point where I could button it up. It was at 18 cms from the waistline.
I don't like a skirt that buttons all the way, I have had a few uncomfortable incidents with buttons opening in critical places. So I decided to cut them off.

Then I marked 18 cms from the waistline all around the top of the skirt. Like this - there is very faint blue line starting at the 4th button. I cut off the top part along that line.





Then I cut off the buttons and sewed the front together, hiding the buttonholes. Sorry, forgot to take a picture of this phase.

Then folded over about 5 cms on the top, ironed it down, and took it to the sewing machine. Folded under about 1 cm, and sewed a line all around. I feel like I am not very good at explaining this, I hope the photos will help. I didn't pin much, just in a few places to keep the side seams together - since the part I folded down was a bit narrower than the part where I folded it down - so I had to do a bit of easing.






I left a little opening where I pulled in a piece of elastic. Then I sewed together the ends, tried the skirt on, then cut the elastic, cut off about 8 cms and sewed it again. Every time I cut elastic, I measure it around my waist, cut it a bit smaller - and it always turns out too lose.






Anyway, my skirt was almost done. I just had to sew back the buttons, only for decoration, so I decided to go lazy and only sewed back every other button :). And here is the end result:






It is still long enough to reach a bit under my knees. I am actually very proud of myself. :)

I am hoping to wear it tomorrow, will try and have a photo taken in it.



All this has just happened and I sat down to write a blog post about it quickly, but I know I promised some other updates.
Let me just boast say that I have finished my Swedish course, and got a B as a final grade which I am really happy with. But I am still so very tired from all that really intensive work.

There is some cross stitch I did but not much, and I also started quilting my first quilt, made some mistakes, and now it is waiting for some unpicking... I will be back with some photos soon.

Upcycling a cardigan - up a size

I bought this cardigan in a second-hand shop because I loved the colour and the soft texture. I bought it for my daughter but she didn't want it. And of course, it was slightly small for me. So I had to do something about it.



Originally it had 4 buttons, two on both sides, but by the time I took this photo, I had removed two of them, thinking that replacing the buttons would be enough to make it wider. It wasn't.

So, I took some black boucle yarn and started to crochet a stripe in single crochet in the middle, for new buttons and buttonholes, to add a few centimeters. It is not very straight because I had to go up to the collar part, too, but I think it looks OK. Then I made a row of single crochet around the collar, too. The sleves were a bit too long and tight, so I folded the extra length back and crocheted two rows there too, one single and one double crochet, then cut off the extra length of the old material and sewed it down so that the knitting didn't unravel.
And of course, the former buttonholes and the spots where the buttons had been (the material was really badly pulled) had to be hidden. So I did some very simple embroidery.

What do you think?







Unfortunately, the embroidery emphasises my middle which would be better off hidden this after-christmas time, but I hope this is just a temporary problem. Trying to fight it, you see :)

Family heritage displayed

OK, it's not my family, but my boyfriend's. It was last summer when I first saw Stephen's grandmother's sewing box. It was full of treasures. The most beautiful things were the lace his grandmother and great-grandmother crocheted.

I told him he should display them instead of keeping them in a box. But of course, he is not a man who would put out a doily, however beautiful it may be. And the pieces of lace his grandmother left were small, they were either practice pieces or left from longer bands when the rest was used.

I had an idea but it took me this long to put it into action. I embroidered the grandmother's and great-grandmother's names, and put the whole treasure together in an old, thrift-shop frame.
The doily in the middle is the great-grandmother's work, the rest is his grandma's.

Sorry, the picture is not the best, but that's all I could do at the lamplight.



Isn't it lovely?
Go and look in your grandma's sewing box! :D

New Life? Using old pieces of needlework

I have lots of old pieces of needlework. I have some I inherited or received from my family, and lots that I bough in Sweden. Sweden is a wonderful place, you can find tons of old embroidery and crochet pieces in the second-hand shops and flea-markets.
I have quite a few I am collecting as my personal museum, really beautiful works.

On the other hand, there are quite a lot in the collection that are not all that beautiful. They are worn or faded and I wouldn´t put them on my wall or table. Or they are in a colour that was fashionable at a time (probably the 60s and 70s) but not any more. However, I wouldn´t want to throw them out either, because I keep thinking of the unknown people who spent weeks or months making them.

I was thinking about using them for something else. For a while I was not really sure if this is a good idea, it almost feels like a kind of sacrilege. Finally, I decided it is more like giving these things another, new life. Here are a few examples.


First, although it might be too late now for making autumn-projects, I would like to show you what I made with my students in the "creative crafts" lesson a few weeks ago.




It´s a branch of tree stuck in a jar filled with gravel. Then each student made a leaf and we hang them on the branch.

You can also see me in the reflection. :)
I took another picture at another place, perhaps you can see it better.




I also made a few leaves myself, and this is what I want to share with you.

I had these old pieces of crochet:



I sewed a leaf shape with zig-zag stitch, and cut it out. I made experiments, because the crochet got more than once caught in the sewing machine. So I tried sewing it with tissue paper, which was difficult to tear of the crochet, then I sewed it on a piece of fabric, I think that worked best.

The first one:



You can see how the thread is tangled in once place where it was caught in the machine.

Then with the tissue paper:







Finally with fabric:





Another "new-life project:

My first patchwork, a hanging folder for bills and receipts for my boyfriend:



Look at the inside:



It is a piece cut from an old cross-stitched tablecloth that has really faded colours, in some places the embroidery has even come undone, but I think it works well as the lining for this little project.

I would like to hear your opinion about this question. Is it all right to make new pieces of old embroidery or crochet, or is it a disrespect to the original creator?