I Finished a Refashion!

My Goodness...

As a simple, starter project, the ruffled scarf seemed like a good first 'refashion' for me.

Yeah, Right!

My boyfriend has been so good to me, he's on the local freecycle and scored a bunch of second hand clothes which I'm putting to use in my refashions.

The thrift stores around here seem to have price tags like the retail stores to me. Of course, I'm originally from Ohio and I scored 20 shirts for $5 once (some of which i'm still wearing and that was oh, 15-20 years ago?!?). So maybe it's me...

Here's what I started with:

way small, knit, workout pants, slight stain, soft white color, soft to the touch, obtained Jan'10

The ruffled scarf jumped to mind. Not many of these have given me what they want to be yet, this most definitely did!

I read everything I could get my mouse on from Nikki's Wardrobe Refashion site and I started cutting. I'm pretty good at cutting. And that is the best part of this story.


I actually got 4 lengths total out of the pants, trimmed into long rectangles...

So Far, So Good!

Next comes, you guessed it, sewing these lengths together to form one long, Long, LONG rectangle!

Only one problem, I don't have a sewing machine.

Enter Laura who loans me a machine and I'm in business, right? Riiiight!

This machine is very reminiscent of mine and perhaps you remember me talking about how moody it is? Well, Laura's machine isn't quite as moody, not quite...

So I basically stitch these 4 lengths together...

Which actually didn't go too badly.

I used white thread on the white fabric and did the pieces 'back to back' (i use "" marks because by now, i couldn't tell!) then I opened up the length and sewed the seam down to the length, all this was with a straight stitch.

So Far, So Good STILL!

THEN, I get to try out this edging business which should make the edge do some nice lettuce leaf look... um, not so much with this fabric:

This took a LOT of thread too.

And I had to use some Navy thread to finish... it's kind of hard to tell so not to worry overly...


Big, not very lettuc-y

And something happened to the tension after awhile. And it didn't go away until I sewed on some paper of all things!

Actually, none of this was all that hard, just little frustrating and a lot of work to keep the tension on the edges to get what I did even with the lettuce edge attempt. It just didn't work out the way I thought it would.

And the final step, to thread some ribbon thru the center. Sounds simple, right?



Ice Cream ALWAYS helps, you know! :)
Riiight!

First off, I couldn't get my ribbon threaded needle thru the darn fabric. The weave was very tight. I actually DID get it thru the ends as I wanted the knot to work. Oh, I even bypassed that idea by putting a decorative bead on the ends.

Needle being stubborn!

Ha! Fixed that!!

Actually, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Oh, I did all that. Only I didn't like how it bunched up with the weight of the cloth which left some of it spread quite thin, unless it's REALLY bunched up.

So I pulled the ribbon out...

And tried looping the ribbon around a couple of places to help distribution a little better.

Still not happy with it. It sure is warm! Just in time for our dip back into winter weather.

Did anyone else have this problem? Perhaps the fabric is heavier or something. I might just bunch it up more tightly all around.


bunchier... looks a little better...

Got any tips? Leave me a note!

Pam Hoffman