The Pledge

I _Karlene_ pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of “new” manufactured items of clothing, for life. I pledge that i shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovated, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftiness brings! Signed_K. Charlton_.

I didn’t find it hard at all to avoid buying new clothes. What was hard was trying to have something to post every week! Now I’m committed.

Next two days are spent traveling home again, its now 4 days later and we’re still not fully unpacked. I have a huge mountain of washing to sort and fold up and the boys are running out of clothes.

Good news, got the bag finished in time to take to the wedding. Well, just, I left off any type of fastening and didn’t have time to pin stitch the flap.

I had to sew the lining twice due to doing it wrong way around with interlining on the inside (the wrong side!) the first time, whoops.

My second go

Had lots of fun with the trimmings on the front flap. Stage one, the net over lay.

Next, the ribbon and cord trimming.

Yo yo’s

Fabric roses

Then beaded loops and we’re done. And the final finished product!

I was careful to get the lining of the flap with the picture up the right way when the bag is open.

Here I am wearing it at the wedding with my matching dress, a birthday gift from Mum.

And a close up of the flap, for those like me who strain their eyes and put their noses to the screen to take in the details,

I love my new little bag, can’t wait to take her out again

I was so keen to get sewing it that I forgot to take any photo’s of what the materials used to look like, which I am now kicking myself for.

The apple print fabric was the skirt part of a little girls dress, I just unpicked it from the top bib part and cut of the side seams. For some reason it was made with the print upside down! This was a bonus for me as it meant it was the right shape I wanted for my bag when turned the right way up.

The red corduroy fabric was from a pair of toddlers overalls that have been in my fabric hoard for years, I think my little brother may have worn them at some stage; obviously not for very long though as they were like new.

The pattern I made for this was fairly basic, just two sides joined together and boxed out at the bottom. I also lined it and put in a little patch pocket, taken straight off the overalls.

Now I’m off to the beach, the weather is lovely here in Auckland…well actually today it’s a bit cloudy but it’s still very hot.

So far I have cut all the pieces out and sewed the main pieces together, boxing out the bottom.

During the school holidays I also spent a bit of time making all these little fabric flowers and yo yo’s that are going to be stitched on the front flap.

I had to make a few changes to make it more baby proof as they are not actually intended as a toy. I left out the wire that is supposed to be in the top feathers, used some fabric scrap in the body rather than the recommended plastic pellets, and I hand sewed a fabric beak instead of painting it on with acrylic.

This was quite a fun project to do. I would recommend this only to people confidant in their sewing ability as some of the instructions are complex to follow.

It was hard to tell if my nephew liked his present or not, as he was much more interested in the box that it came it! Typical

I started off with headband with holes, for the base. It was originally attached to an angel halo that had holes in the headband for the springs holding the halo up, now sadly destroyed for my art, Ah ha ha ha ha…
I got some wire that was thick and sturdy, but light, and threaded it through the head band holes, bending it into a tiara shape.

I recycled some glass beads from a broken necklace to thread onto some fine beading wire and wind around the thicker wire.

The beads are a burgundy/pink colour on one side and green on the other. I used the same colours in the coordinating ruffle wrap that will be part of Rylee’s costume. (I can use their names now, as it is after Christmas, and they have all received their gifts!)
I have also used some old pearl beads of random size and colour, kept by my Nana in her bits and pieces collection, and a few green and dark pink faceted beads on the peaks.

Lastly I covered the band with a bit of wadding and some fabric left over from the wrap and skirt to hide all the wire ends.

Here I am wearing it, as I haven’t got a photo of it on Rylee just yet. She did like it though, the first thing she said when she opened the gift was, “look, I got a crown!”.

This is the flower circlet headdress I made for one of my nieces, to go with the pink ruffled skirt.

I started off with a wire base and covered it with some ribbon (glued on) leaving a trail of ribbon on each end to tie on her head.

I made some tulle roses from scrap left over from the skirt and glued these on the base, then pulled apart some artificial silk flowers and glued the petals in the gaps.

Here I am trying to model it while taking a photo!

I also made a headband for her to wear when a dress-up one would be inappropriate, like school. I used a plain plastic band from the $2 shop and glued on a pink ribbon, then a tulle flower and yo-yo made from the skirt fabric. The ribbon is a little crooked as you can see, next time I think I’ll wrap the ribbon around the band rather than try to get it straight!

I used an old knitting needle for the stick and covered it with a strip of knit fabric and some ribbon, gluing here and there with a hot glue gun to hold in place.
The fluffy bit at the top is made from tulle cut into circles, which are then folded in half, folded into quarters and then folded again, then stitched together to make a ball shape.
I made a flower shape from a piece of wire and attached it with the hot glue gun, then added the blue flower trim to finish it off.

This is the first of the three fairy/princess outfits to be completed! Yay!
I’m still working on headpieces for the other two, hopefully will be finished soon. In fact this whole project has taken me a lot longer than I expected, which is quite frustrating as I had other projects planned to give to people for Christmas and probably won’t get them all done. Next up are some dress-ups for my boys, at least all the kids will have something hand made by me.

I have used lots of layers of different fabrics cut into triangle or square shapes, overlapping at the waist, with a few lengths of ribbon to finish it off.
The main fabric is from an old silk skirt from my mum. I love it when Mum’s have clean outs!

The pale blue bits are from the lining of the skirt and the deep blue and turquoise tulle is the same as I used for the wings.

I have used some light turquoise/blue fine cotton to line it.

I didn’t want any gaps in the lining, but still wanted the shape and fullness of the outer layer, so what I did was cut two large squares, cut holes in the middle like I did for my first fairy skirt, then cut up the middle of each. I then joined the two together (the circle bits) to make one very full skirt layer with eight points. If you look carefully you can see one of the two seams where I joined them together.

This was the first time I tried this technique and I really like how it turned out. In fact I wish I done the same thing to the outer layer!
Will have to do some more skirts that way in the future.