Refashioning: How to Make Sequin Leg Warmers from Skirts

I like to read fashion magazines to get ideas when I'm bored of my clothes. I must say I haven't been too inspired by anything I've seen lately, except for what you see below: sequin socks!

I mean, they are just the weirdest thing, aren't they? Who would even think to make them? But they look so cute and unusual. . .so my mind started spinning.

I like the look of them, but. . .I wasn't too thrilled with the sock idea. I mean, socks can only be worn once and then they need to be washed, so I had an alternative idea that would still keep the sequins around the ankles, but not be so scratchy around the foot: leg warmers!

I found this mini skirt on the dollar rack at Goodwill.

And this velveteen skirt as well.

First, I measured around my calf and I cut the skirt you see below to that measurement plus one inch (for seam allowance). I also cut it as tall as I could get it with the fabric I had. Cutting through the skirt like this gave me two panels.

I used those same measurements to cut out two panels of velveteen.

Since the bottom edge of the skirts were both finished, I decided to use that as the bottom of the leg warmers (the pieces are upside-down in this picture). I pinned the adjacent edges of one piece of sequin with one piece of velveteen with right sides together.

I sewed them with the sequins on bottom. (Note: velveteen is tricky because it slides around, so. . .watch out for that!)

So once those seams were created, I unfolded both pieces and pinned the long edges with right sides together.

After sewing those seams, I turned each tube inside out.

The finished leg warmer. This project took about fifteen minutes.

And! They are reversible!

The End!

Refashioning: How to Make a Dickie from a Collared Shirt and Instantly Elevate Your Wardrobe

Sometimes, you buy a shirt when you only actually like the collar. You may hate the rest of it (as I do for the shirt below!)

So, today, we are going to make a dickie!

Dickies are a great way to elevate a regular no-collar shirt or sweater. In the 90s, dickies were mostly just the top part of a turtleneck made to wear under V-neck sweaters without having the added bulk and heat-trapping layers of a full turtleneck.

However, while they were supposed to make life easier, they usually ended up creeping up around the decollate area and making weird wrinkles underneath said sweaters.

Today, dickies are made much more thoughtfully as they have elastic under the armpits to keep them down. (Innovative!!) Also, they aren't just turtlenecks anymore. See the cute one below? I bought it because (1) the dickie was much cheaper than buying the whole shirt, (2) I can mix and match it with not just fall/winter attire, but also spring/summer shirts, (3) I wanted one to study to figure how to make my own!

Using the pre-made dickie as a template, I laid my shirt down underneath it and cut around. If you don't have a pre-made dickie, you can cut from around the seam at the top of the shoulder down to about the top of the chest area--usually down to about the fifth or sixth button. Really, this measurement is up to you and how deep the necklines are of the items under which you will be putting the dickie, so you should probably get your deepest necklined shirt/sweater out and use that as your reference. Wherever that neckline falls, give yourself another inch or two to make sure the dickie doesn't pop out!

For mine, I used binding lace to finish the edges. If you don't have binding you can just leave about 5/8" seam allowance around the extremity when you are cutting your dickie out, then fold the edge in about 1/4" and press, and then fold it in again about 1/4" and press. That was too much work for me, so I bound instead! (Also. . .you really don't HAVE to finish the edges as they will never be seen, so you can skip to the next step if raw edges don't bother you. However, bear in mind that finished edges keep things from falling apart over time. So. . .do as the Spirit leads.)

Here are the edges all finished.

Next, you need to measure about 6-ish inches of elastic for under the arms. Fold the edge of the elastic under about 1/4" and pin it to the wrong side of either side of the dickie to create arm holes.

Then, zig-zag stitch them in place.

The finished arm hole from the right side.

The finished dickie.

Much cuter than the original shirt!

The End!

Refashioning: T-Shirts and Socks into a Quilt. . .Bonus: Hair Tie Elastics

Who would make old socks into a quilt???? Well, I'll explain myself in a second. Let me start with the T-Shirts.

If you read my last post, you would know that I made thirty of my old T-Shirts into a quilt. Well, I had a few more. . .And these ones had emblems on them that were too big to fit into my square pattern. You can see below that they would only work in elongated rectangles. This required a little more forethought as I needed to plan out how they would lie. See, unlike the squares, they weren't all the same length, so I had to configure them so that they would fit into an even shape on all sides.

Then, I sewed the majority of them into five strips. (And then I sewed the strips together, but I didn't take a picture of that step.) Like last post, I doubled each piece with not only the front of the shirt, but also the back. (You can see why if you go here.)

All right. Now here come the socks. See. . .I lived in South Korea for three years. In Asia, you can buy the cutest little ankle socks on the street for $1. Needless to say, I bought a bazillion. They were so cute, but I don't wear them anymore. Some of them I never wore. But they are so cute! I didn't want to just throw them away! So, I thought I would add them to the bottom of my second T-Shirt quilt. Yes, I washed them a few times before doing this!!! Don't worry!

First, I cut the toes off. . .(And the heels and ankle bands.)

Then, I turned each sock around and cut up the middle. Because these socks were much thicker than the T-Shirts, I left them at one layer.

Then, I matched up the folds and sewed them all into strips like this.

Then, I sewed the strips together.

Then, I added them to the bottom of the quilt top. (I did measure them all out precisely of course. I don't just do things willy-nilly!)

Okay, here's the part I didn't show, but just explained in the last post. I laid my jersey backing fabric down first (very important to use jersey and not woven), and then laid my batting down. I was running out of batting at this point, so you can see where I've pieced it together.

Then, I laid my quilt top down and trimmed my batting around the outside of the quilt top, but within the backing fabric. 

Then I folded the backing fabric over the batting and pinned it through the quilt top and through all the layers. 

I sewed the backing fabric in place around the perimeter of the blanket.

Then, I pinned down my columns at regular intervals and did the actual quilting step. (Again, read the other post to see what that means.)

Here is the finished quilt.

Okay, last thing...I saved the prettier ankle bands of the socks to use for hair ties! They make the best hair ties because they don't break your hair!

The End!

Refashioning: T-Shirts into a Quilt

Making T-Shirts into a quilt was really popular a few years ago. Everyone was making them and it was revolutionary. Well. . .I may be a day late and a dollar short, but I still had a bunch of T-Shirts that I wasn't wearing, yet didn't want to get rid of, so. . .whether it's in vogue or not, I still did this project! I did do it a tad differently than the norm, so read on to find out how.

I work for my church in the office. Sometimes, I have to make these booklets with plastic binding. Well, I accidentally messed up two of the bindings, so instead of throwing them away, I took them home, taped them together to make a square, and used them as my quilt pattern.

This is how I cut my shirts out: I laid the pattern on top of the emblem of each T-Shirt, and just cut around it--all the way through each shirt--through the front and back at once. This made two pieces per shirt.

I kept cutting until I had cut thirty shirts. I had sixty squares when I was done.

Instead of throwing away the back pieces of the shirts, I actually kept them with their corresponding fronts as I sewed all the pieces together. Why did I do this? Two reasons: (1) Not all shirts were the same stretchy-ness. Some of the shirts stretched a lot more than others. Keeping an extra layer with every piece sewn added some body and heft which gave the whole project more uniformity. In fact, I actually traded around the backing squares on some of the stretchiest T-Shirts. (2) the extra layer added an extra level of warmness. (It also made the finished blanket 25-30% heavier, so if you want a lighter-weight blanket, don't do this. However, if you skip this step, make sure all your T-Shirts have the same stretchy-ness.) You can see my layers in the picture below. I used a simple zig-zag stitch with a wideness of 3 and a closeness of 1.5. The reason I waited so long to do this project was because I was hoping to have had a serger by now. Oh well, I don't. Anyways, the zig-zag stitch worked just fine!

I sewed them in five columns of six squares. Then I sewed the six squares together. I didn't use pins because they were all the same size squares. However, I only sewed a few inches at a time and made sure that all my seams matched up as I went along. Slow and steady wins the race!

I chose this baby blue/green jersey for the backing, simply because that was the only jersey I had that was wide enough. If you do this, make sure you use a jersey backing cloth as well. It will look and feel really weird if you use a woven cloth, that doesn't stretch, behind T-Shirts that do stretch. If all you have is woven, then you will need to iron on some non-stretch interfacing behind each of your T-Shirt pieces before you sew them all together, or at least before you sew all the layers together.

 Skipping ahead. I laid my backing cloth down first, then put my batting down, then laid the quilt top down over that. I trimmed the batting and then folded the backing cloth over the batting and connected it to the top layer with pins--pinning through all the layers at once. You can't really see it in this picture, but if you zoom in, you can see all the pins around the outside.

Once I sewed all around the quilt (and mitered the corners), I pinned through all the layers at the intersections of each T-Shirt piece. You can see what I'm talking about below. See how the pin goes through the corners of the white, yellow, green, and orange shirts? I then rolled it all up, and with the roll starting in my lap, I started feeding all these intersections through my machine, back tacking at just the intersections. This is a very necessary step because it keeps your batting (and everything really) in place. Little known fact: This is actually the act of quilting--when you sew through all the layers of a blanket to add warmth to a blanket, and to keep all the layers in place. (Some people think that quilting is when you sew a bunch of pieces together, but that is actually called "piecing" to make a quilt top.)

The finished quilt. Now I can keep all my sentimental T-Shirts that I never wear without them cluttering my drawers!

The finished quilt on my couch.

The End!

Make Your Own SPF Body Lotion!

UPDATE: This recipe I used lasted 3.5 months. It kept very well during that time.

First off, I need to explain that my recipe for body lotion is not FDA approved, and I make no claims that it will prevent skin cancer.

That said, I use two types of sun "blocking" ingredients: zinc oxide, and titanium dioxide--both in powder form. I use these because after researching, it seems that both of these ingredients are less harmful than other sunscreens out there. Anyways, I had them on hand from another project for which I bought them, so. . .into my lotion they would go.

If you want to make your own lotion, you don't have to use all the ingredients that I used. I just had them in my supply from my soap making and other little projects. Basically, if you want to make lotion, you need to have some kind of solid oil or butter and some liquid oil. Make sure to use about two to three times as much liquid as you use solid. You could even use different ingredients from what I used, so don't be afraid to experiment. Just keep in mind that if your ingredients need to be refrigerated or will likely spoil, your lotion won't hold up very long.

I am the kind of person who goes through lotion (SPF especially as I wear it every day) way too quickly, so this is why I decided to make my own. I just bought this five cup glass jar at a yard sale, so I could make lotion that would last me several weeks.

What I used: beeswax, cocoa butter, shea butter, coconut oil, grapeseed oil, avocado oil, pure aloe gel, titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, and one bottle of Bath and Body Works lotion (I'll explain why).

Whatever oils and butters you use, make sure to melt the hardest ones first. I cut up about a bar and a half of beeswax and melted it in the microwave for two minutes.

I cut up some cocoa butter and added it to the beeswax and melted it for another two minutes.

I had an already open jar of coconut oil, and I added some shea butter to it. I melted those together for about a minute.

You can see my two jars here. I forgot to mention: I wanted the jar to be big enough I could fit my hand into it. Also, I wanted it to be big enough so that I could actually make the lotion in it. This would cut down on cleaning and also cut down on product loss. The coconut oil jar I just ended up throwing away, so I didn't have to clean that one either.

Then, I added the coconut oil/shea butter to the bigger jar.

Then, using the now empty coconut oil jar, I added about 5T of zinc oxide and 5T of titanium dioxide. (I read that a good ratio for SPF is to add about 1-2T of either z.o. or t.d. to 8oz. of lotion. Since this jar is 5 cups, and 1 cup is 8oz., that is why I added 10T of the powder.)

I then filled the jar with grapeseed oil and avocado oil and stirred it up.

The jar is not quite full yet!

Okay,...this is not DIY, but I get lotion every Christmas and I hate to waste it. . .so I added the rest of an already opened bottle of Japanese Cherry Blossom lotion from B&BW. In my mind, maybe there are preservatives in this lotion that will help my DIY lotion not to go bad? I dunno. It smells good at least.

Waste not, want not.

The container still wasn't full, so I topped it off with organic aloe gel.

Then, I got out my immersion blender and blended it all up right in the jar!

The finished jar. Because it is squarish, it fits in my bathroom drawer quite nicely. I wanted to keep it out of direct sunlight, just so it keeps better.

It feels so great. It's a little greasy at first, but after about an hour it really absorbs into the skin and my skin feels super soft all day. Even my hands still feel soft. . .and I wash them like every five minutes!

The End!