M(a)y Mending Month IX

Today I'm sharing just a small mending project. Last year I made my first flamenco dress, for my nearly one year old, as I mentioned here. Back then, I also made the nephew's pants and suspenders. And, took one ruffle off the niece's dress because it was too long. 

One year has gone and the Romeria week time came again and you know... kids grow! 

I had to sew the ruffle back to my niece's dress... and I did it all by hand. The dress was at my parents in Spain, and I couldn't fix it until I got there last friday evening. That's a lot of ruffle to sew by hand - let me tell you!

I also had to fix my little one's dress. I ripped the last ruffle off, and added a small band all around in order to attach the ruffle to it again, giving me extra lenght to the dress. The nephew's was just fine. A little too tight already, but at least I didn't have to put my hands on it. 

I left planning to make myself a flamenco skirt next year. Not sure I will, but I have it in mind. I fell in love with one from a little girl and I even took photos of it to rerember later... hehhe

M(a)y Mending Month VIII

I'm still not sure if I call it mending or refashioning. The thing is, my mom was given a Tintoretto dress, but the elastic on the back was too old and had lost elasticity. Besides, she didn't really like the fit. She wasn't sure if she wanted me to fix it for her or just give it to me, so I could turn it into something new for baby G.

The fabric was great, I loved it at first sight, so I didn't want her to give up on it that easy. I suggested to turn it into a tunic instead and she aproved the idea.

A few days ago, I finally took care of it (she wasn't waiting for too long though), changed the elastic on the back, and cut it from dress to tunic, hemmed and voilá! Easy peasy! And I still had a nice amount of the amazing fabric to try and turn it into something for the little princess. 

M(a)y Mending Month: Simple Invisible Stitched Hem Tutorial

First of all I'd like to apologise for the flash pictures, but  lately I have only been able to sew in the evenings, after G. is in bed - the problem is she has been refusing sleep, so she ends up sleeping much later and I end up with no time at all unless I'm up until 1a.m. on a daily basis. 

On my month's challenge, I've been mending clothes from the mending pile - which was getting way too big. I had (and still have a few) a lot of classic looking pants to hem. Here's how I make those, always by hand. 

And you're done. Any doubts and you know you're free to ask. 

M(a)y Mending Month VI

Didn't I say it was mainly pants I had to mend? I wasn't kidding, I guess by the end of my challenge, if I get to fix all of the pants in the pile, I'll end up with more than double of what I already had...

Three more pairs here. Look how great they fit me now?!

I had to take in the waist in all three pairs and had to hem too. I was given the first and the third, and bought the red skinnies after having my daughter, all this time I've been just folding the hems and wearing a belt to keep them sort of in place... oppsssss... I'm really proud and happier to use the now, and I do that all the time since I love my red skinnies!!!!

Here's a closer look to my mendings. I forgot the sew the loop back on the white pants (the one in the middle), and I hand stitched the hem for this one with an invisible stitch - my personal favourite way of hemming classic styled pants. Sorry the hem picture is a bit blurry. 

The red one look ok on the outside but I was sewing a sort of a french seam inside and it got sloppy, I didn't really care to fix that since no one would actually see it but me (and all of you =/ Sorry!). 

The grey one... well I think this one was just perfect. It's neat and I didn't forget or miss any spot/bit. The insides are equally perfect and I even sewed back the label to it. 

I'm counting 6 pairs of pants already and I can tell you there's more to come!

M(a)Y Mending Month: Folded Hem Tutorial

In my previous post, I told you that I made a folded hem on my pants to keep the original look. 

This kind of hem is really easy to do and adds a special detail to your finished piece. Today I am going to show you how to do it. 

Start by measuring the length you desire your garment to be. I needed to cut about 11cm from mine. Then go unpicking (1) the original hem. You'll be faced with a folded mark (2) and that's from here that we will work.  In picture number 3, I am showing you how it looks outside. Press (4) it all flat so you can work better. 

Let's work on the inside of your pants. Measure (5) how much distance from the folded mark (11cm in my image) up to the desires length of your pants. Measure 2cm down the folded mark (6). Then cut on that line (7). Fold your pants to the inside, using the upper line to guide you (8), and do some wide stitches just to keep it in place (9). I usually use pins but I figured it was much easier to do it this way in order to get a better finished look. 

You will fold it again (10/11) and pin it. Sew a straight line using your foot's distance (12), 0,5cm in mine. Then unfold and press your seams on the inside (13). And you're done (14). If there is any step that wasn't really clear, please feel free to contact me and I'll be glad to help. 

A while ago I have done a different folded hem tutorial. I wrote it in portuguese only though, in my other blog. Here's a link just in case you want to look at the pictures. Hopefully I'll get around to share that here too. 

M(a)Y Mending Month IV

Time for another mended piece. This was a great find. My sister works in a clothes department, and sometimes she can find us some very cheap clothes. This denin pants were one of those. They were 3€. I bought two pairs just because I couldn't decide which ones I liked best. These are darker, the others* are a little blueish(er).

What was the problem with them? Well to start the zipper was broken. It almost made me leave them here. If there's one thing that scares me is changing zippers. I don't fear adding them to a new garment I am sewing, but it just freaks me out when I have to change one. Go figure! 

The thing is, I avoid the task... like  a l w a y s ! This time though, I thought it'd be a good opportunity to improve my skills, and face my fears. I even had the perfect zipper I had saved from one of V.'s pants that I had cut to do baby G. something. 

Apart from that zipper, the only thing it needed was a new hem. I'm short, really short so I always have to cut a few cms out of my pants. I really liked the original folded hem, and wanted to keep it, so I just did the folded hem myself. If you want to know how, stay around, a tutorial will be up soon. And I love my new pants... the ironing part has been keeping me from using them... ooppppssss... gotta get my hands on that soon. 

You can see from the pictures how much I had to cut out of my lenght. And myself applied zipper... yay for me! It didn't turn out bad at all. 

*will have to Cut some lenght on these ones too!

M(a)Y Mending Month III

I haven't done this now, but I thought it'd be nice to share with you. 

I bought this old looking jeans, but it happens that they´ve frayed and got a hole too big after just a little use. Since they are skinnies and tight, it would look like I had a piece of flesh wanted to run out of the hole. I didn't like it at all. 

So, I thought of something to fix it, and this is what I got: I sewed with a zig-zag stitch, a piece of black lace in the holes place. Voilá! Now it's wearable again, everyone loves it, and it's become one of my favourites (no kidding, I am wearing them right now!).

M(a)y mending month II

I have a 21 year old niece. And she buys a lot of clothes everytime the season/fashion tendency changes. So, after each season, I always get a lot of clothes from her. The problem is that most of her clothes won't fit me on the boobies. She's an L and I am an XS. Which pretty much annoys me when there is something I really like.

Lately I've discovered I've got a thing about greys and browns, so I just couldn't donate one of those shirts she gave me. Here's my solution to fix the problem... 

I don't have a picture of it finished, (sorry!) but it looks just great. 

M(a)Y mending month I

As said before, this is the month I decided to go through the huge pile of clothes waiting for any kind of mending. There are mostly pants. I have a very thin waist and pants fit me well everywhere but always have to be a little taken in the waist. Since mending isn't really my favourite thing to do when it comes to sew, some of them have been waiting for years. Yes, you read it right, years. Some I never got to wear!

There are also button shirts with too puffy sleeves, tunics to be hemmed, seams to be done, etc etc etc. 

Today I am sharing one of the easiest things I had to do, and kept posponing for years... so you can see how much I hate mending... lol ... now, honestly, I don't understand why on earth it took me this much to just do a few stitches. 

I had these lovely pair of pants that fits me so well, I love the colour, the fabric, the shape, everything. It closes with a button placket on the front, and right under the placket there's a few stitches that used to unite both pieces of fabric together (I mean the right and left pieces), so my underwear wouldn't show. 

After using it just twice, those stitches fell apart and I never got to sew them together again. When I decided to go for the mending pile, this was one of the first things I did. I didn't even use the machine - I felt lazy to change the thread and did it by hand. It took me less than two minutes. Et voilá! I got myself a new pair of pants (back). 

Self Challenge for May

You know how I love a good challenge, don't you? So, when I looked to the pile of clothes I've been acumulating because they just need a little fixing I made my mind: I had to dedicate a whole month to mending those pieces. and I've started already. I will try to share as much as possible of those little fixing into my clothes... Did I mention I just  h a t e  mending?

It's going to be a good challenge for me!

Oh, and by the way... my Flower Fairy Dress was featured at Pam's Threading My Way! Thanks again, Pam!