Refashioning: Jake the Pirate Costume from a Lady's Suit

I love my job, but sometimes it requires doing the most random things.

I am a secretary for my church. We had a Disney themed Easter egg hunt this past Saturday. My pastor's wife asked me to make a Jake and the Neverland Pirates vest for one of the teenagers to wear.

This is what Jake the Pirate looks like:

So, I was going to buy all the fabric needed, but as I was out driving, I thought I would stop into a thrift store just to see what they had. They had this lady's suit for $.50. It was just about the right size in the bodice, so I thought...why make a whole vest from scratch, when I could just work around something already made?

I went to Wal-Mart and got a few other supplies: yellow blanket binding, four yellow buttons, yellow thread, and iron-on facing...or what I thought was iron-on facing...

First step was to cut out the shoulder pads and cut off the sleeves.

It had patch pockets on the front that needed taking off as well. They were attached from the back to the front, so this is what I did to take care of this problem: 

This bottom hem would be covered in yellow binding, so it didn't matter that it was showing on the front.

Okay, next, I had to remove the collar because if you scroll back up to the Jake picture, you will see that it isn't right.

So, fortunately, since the skirt came with the blazer, I had enough fabric to make a new collar. I cut the elastic off the top of the skirt.

Okay, using the original collar as as sort of guide, I drew a new collar around it on paper I pieced together.

The first collar wasn't quite right. It sat too low. (Wow. I look very frazzled in this picture!)

So, through trial and error, I finally drew a collar pattern that I thought would work.

The main thing I wanted was for the collar to stand up a little bit in the back. The original pattern didn't do that.

Okay, so this is the part that really started to stress me out. I thought I had bought iron-on facing, because when I asked the lady at Wal-Mart, "Wear is your iron-on facing?" she lead me to the roll of the stuff I bought. . .which was actually iron-on adhesive! Grrrr. . .But I didn't have all this time to run back to Wal-Mart and get the right thing, because as I said before, I was at work. Meaning: I had other things I had to get done besides making vests! So, in the words of Tim Gunn, it was a "Make-It-Work moment.". . .

So I made two large pieces of double-sided fabric, essentially. It didn't have the body I wanted for the collar to stand up nicely, but at least it had a little stiffness--albeit heavy. I laid the double-sided fabric on top of each other and pinned my pattern to it and cut out the pieces.

Then, I stitched up the back seam of the collar pieces. 

Here is the middle back of the neck of the vest, denoted with a pin.

Then, I sewed the binding onto the vest, and very casually mitered the corners. (Again, not a lot of time to do it perfectly.)

Excuse my foot in this picture.

Then, I sewed the binding onto the collar.

Remember that pin in the middle back of the neck of the vest? I matched that to the middle seam of the collar, pinned them both together, and sewed them together.

Then, I tacked down the points of the bottom of the collar. (You can see the one on the left was tacked and the one on the right wasn't yet.)

I had left about 1/2" of sleeve so that I could use that as seam allowance. I folded that 1/2" under and sewed both sleeves up.

Last step: buttons!

This was a peasant blouse that I reworked to make the Jake shirt. (Forgot to take pictures of this process.)

I made the headband and cummerbund out of some Wal-Mart poly-satin.

And here is what he looked like at the egg hunt! If I had had him in person to fit things on, I would have taken the vest in a bit, but anyways, he looks cute!

And here I am at the same egg hunt. I am supposed to be Cruella Deville, but the white hairspray I used turned out grey. Oh well! (That "fur stole" is a tube of faux fur that I made in about two minutes at the last possible second!)

The End!

Summer-izing a Blazer Jacket

I love blazers. I love them so much that I wear them with things you might not expect...like baby doll dresses. (I learned to do that in South Korea.) However, blazers are really best worn in cold weather. (Or when your office cranks the a.c. in the summer!) Anyways, I already have a black blazer that I love, but I found the Merona jacket below at Goodwill for a dollar and couldn't pass it up because I'd been wanting to make a warm weather blazer option.

First, cut the sleeves off wherever you want. (Make sure to add about an inch for seam allowance.)

Turn it inside out, and fold the outer part in about an inch.

Fold the lining in toward the part you just folded. (In other words, the raw edges are now inside the two pieces of fabric.)

Pin it down, but make sure your pins are about 1/4" from the edge of the lining.

All right....now look at the next three pictures in sequence. (You are folding the black part down, holding it with your left hand, and with your right hand taking the pin out and re-pinning it.)

This is what it should look like when you are done with that step.

Turn the sleeves right side out. Fold the cuff part back so you can see the pins. Then set your machine to it's blind stitch setting. (I accidentally went ahead and sewed it, and then forgot that I hadn't taken a picture...so that's why the seam is already sewn! Sorry!) 

This is what it looks like when you are done. I'ts kinda messy, but that's okay because it's inside the sleeve. The main thing is for the raw edges to be hidden.

You can wear it like this.

Or if you kept enough length in the sleeves, you can fold them up.

The End!