Jeans skirt refashion
Some of my friends will remember seeing this skirt before:
I made this about two years ago, from an old pair of jeans that I didn’t wear anymore. I was inspired by some original looking skirts I saw online made from jeans combined with other fabrics and decided to have a go at the jeans to skirt transformation myself.
There are many sites out there with tutorials that will show you how to turn jeans into a skirt with some slight variations, basically you cut the legs to the length required, cut or unpick the inner leg seams up to the crotch, then a little bit further up the front and back seams, overlap the top bits so they sit flat and then stitch in a triangle panel to fill in the gap. You can also cut up the side seams if you wish and insert panels for extra flare at the sides.
For more details check out Busy Parents online or this site with instructions from five other websites, or try this video if you like more visual instructions.
For my skirt, I decided lots of flowers up one side would be something different and add a bit of personality.
I made some patterns in varying sizes of my chosen motif – a five petal flower, and chose some red scrap fabrics with differing textures – plain cotton, printed, velvet and satin to make the flowers.
I appliqued some of the flower shapes onto the skirt and used others to make floating shapes to layer on top for a more textured look.
Some of the flowers were attached by sewing white flower and red seed beads in the centre and others were attached by sewing on some red tulle roses that I had made for another project many years ago.
I enjoy wearing my one of kind skirt to different occasions, and it certainly gets noticed!
Mummy bag for Raewyn
My good friend Raewyn needed a mummy bag for nappies and other mum stuff that didn’t look like a mummy bag.
Here she is modeling the bag I made her.
And because little girls like bags too, I made one for her little girl as well.
They had lots of fun modeling their new bags on the “catwalk” seat so we could get some photos…
And I also made one for the baby girl just turned one. She was so tired at her party she was having a sleep when we took the photos, so here it is on the dress stand.
Here is a closer look of Raewyn’s, and the inside, showing the zip pocket and cellphone pocket.
Quilt for Pip and Dave
I made a log cabin quilt for my friends Pip and Dave, using up a heap of scraps I had been storing for a while. This was my first attempt at doing a real quilt, so I learned a few things on the way. The most important thing was why quilts are traditionally made from cotton fabric - the synthetic ones are so much harder so sew! Cotton fabrics are stable and flow through the machine like they’re supposed to. The man-made fabrics, well they just have a mind of their own. Combining them in a quilt was kind of interesting.
I printed a wedding photo onto some printable cotton designed to go in your computer’s printer, to use as the centre panel and then worked a pattern around it with the log cabin blocks. The border around the photo is made from strips of Pip’s dress. I machine appliqued 4 red heart motifs to frame it.
I machine quilted around the blocks for stability, and hand quilted heart motifs where there was a need.
Oh yeah, Keith helped me by colouring the bouquet and Dave’s tie and buttonhole in the photo before it was printed. Ok he kind of helped with the printing part too. Thank you dear!
We hope Pip and Dave enjoy their quilt and think happy marriage thoughts when they use it 
Bags with a story…
Ah the stories that fabric can tell when passed down through generations.
The scrap fabric that this bag is made from was left over from a dress that my nana made for my mother. She tells me it was a long A-line dress with a hood (!) and a “muff” pocket for keeping your hands warm. And it had fluffy trim. I can only imagine what this must have looked liked – there are no photo’s, but you can bet that nana matched those seams perfectly
Here’s the inside,
And here it is again worn by my youngest son Jordan
The fabric in this bag also has a history, I think it was used for Bridesmaid dresses at my aunties wedding.
Yes, it’s bright tangerine crimplene. Can you imagine it in a long dress with a white lace ruffle down the front? Tee Hee I just love those 70’s fashions.
I used some coordinating retro knit fabric for the lining, and the for the pocket which didn’t turn out very well – it needed some iron on interfacing for stability. We live and learn!
Wedding dress for Pip
I made this Wedding dress for my friend Pip. Thankfully she made life easier for me by purchasing a pattern, so all I had to do was sew it.
The lace has an organza floral trim and border. I used the tricky snip-and-hand stitch method on some of the seams near the hem so the flower motifs weren’t caught up in the stitching.
I don’t have any full dress shots unfortunately, but if I ever get hold of any then I will put them here.
