tshirt magic

I'm in love with smocking, and finding re-uses for old clothes, so when I saw this tshirt made into a toddler's dress on my craftzine facebook friend, I was wowed.

T-shirt wedding

Sounds crazy, a wedding dress made out of a tshirt, but it looks pretty amazing. Old t-shirts are cool! Get the tutorial by Donna and Lauren Kroiz on Craftzine - as always, inspiring.

Another blog about t-shirts

Llike everyone who shops 2nd hand, I have a large collection of misfit clothes bought for the fabric or colours. This means I am always on the lookout for re-use inspiration. Here is a tutorial for shabby t-shirt to chic from LindaEve, who blogs on the Eco Etsy Street Team. (Yay a new eco blog to follow).

Reblogged from Craftzine.

this one is for girls only

I finally converted Granny's pink felt ring into a headband for baby C using the hem of an old t-shirt. It looks okay (the felt flower is definitely the best part) she likes to chew it, but will leave it on her head.

After I was done, I realised I should have used the entire length of the t-shirt hem and made myself a flower out of the left overs on the one side, using a tutorial I blogged about in the past.

Damn, why did I throw away those old t-shirts

Last Sunday I went through my stash of old clothes waiting to be upcycled and threw away ruthlessly (decided I wouldn't carry them back during the move) and today I come across a great how-to for converting an old t-shirt into a baby romper. What's always stopped me from attempting this project is the fact I don't have a press-stud machine, but this pattern uses velcro. Dope, why didn't I think of that first.

T-shirt pillow

I'm into finding re-uses for t-shirts at the moment, and this one was quite novel - the patchwork t-shirt pillow.

My old jean pant ... wift a belt

So I had an even older pair of jeans (the painting pants) which I decided to cut up and transform into baby shoes. I used this pattern from Michelle Q which was slightly bigger than the first pattern I found from Stardust shoes. Both are pretty similar.

I used the old denim for the outer and sole and an old t-shirt for the inner. The first pair I made were too narrow - the instructions to enlarge the shoe (baby has a big foot) say to make it longer but I found that I needed to make it bigger all the way around and the heel longer and wider at the bottom (not the fold side).

It was a fairly straight forward pattern. The only tough bit was remembering how to do a button hole on my own machine (Elna 2004). Sewing the heel on the sole I only got 100% right the third time - it's hard to pin right and I made the fabric pleat instead of just unpinning the rest of the seam and moving the end along.

It would be nice to add some embellishment (like a bow, a felt or embroidered heart) but I have enough to keep me busy and she needs some easy to slip on shoes.

Cool baby

I have a Dutch book called Cool Baby with really neat ideas like creating a kid rain poncho out of an old umbrella, or baby outfits out of t-shirts, jerseys out of scarves, or dresses from jean pant legs.

I have gotten so much inspiration... like the idea to create my brother a dreads shower cap out of a dead umbrella. There is really a gap in the market here but I must perfect my design. He says it drips cold water down his neck (brrrr).

Then I made baby C some dress from B's old and stained t-shirts. Unfortunately I didn't take any photos along the way to show you exactly how, but here is a rough guide.


I cut (roughly) along the red lines seen in the photo, measuring against another dress of hers to be sure the width and length would be good.

First I cut in the middle of the v-neck, then in a square around (both sides). Then enough to make a skirt using the right edge, and including the cute polo logo.

Then I pinned them together, criss-crossing the collar like you see in the finished dress. I cut whatever was left over once I pinned the skirt to the top and sewed around, making sure that the whole collar edge was caught in the seam.

Then, if the fabric is nice, you can use the rest to make bibs!