new cat behavior

I hope you all are having a wonderful week so far. My sister is in town from out of state and we had a big(ish) family dinner on Sunday with my parents and all their posterity. There's not a huge number of us yet, but the cousins had a great time playing together so there was a lot of commotion. It feels so good to be living near my family again.

I recently completed another shirt refashion from my stash. This is a shirt I picked up during my Macy's clearance rack raid I talked about in this post.



I loved the square neckline and embroidery, but not the white, especially with small children who love to grab me with messy hands. Also the flutter sleeves were not very flattering.

So I dyed it using Rit dye in purple. I used the stove top method, which was rather tiring because I had to stand there and stir the entire time (nearly 30 minutes). The shirt itself is cotton, so it took the dye well, but the embroidery and the thread used to sew the shirt together is synthetic so it did not take the dye at all. That was okay with me since I did want to keep the contrast of the embroidery.

Then, using elastic thread, I sewed all around the edge of the sleeve to make it a puff sleeve instead of a flutter sleeve. I thought I'd share a tip for using the elastic thread: tie it off so it doesn't pull out. [This may totally be a given that everyone knows already, but I haven't seen anyone else say it, so I thought I would just in case.]

Leave the beginning and end tails of the thread long (at least a few inches) so it's easier to work with.



Using a needle, bring the regular thread through to the side with the elastic thread.



Tie in a knot several times and trim excess short.



And now I have a shirt in my favorite color! Yay for purple!



Have any of you used dye for your projects?

Here's another one of my shirt refashions that (thankfully) only took two days to complete because I put off other things (dishes, house work) to make it happen.  My husband said "But you just made a shirt!"  Yeah.  So?  Right now he has at least twice as many shirts as I do, and I don't like most of mine!  So I'm taking time to make some shirts (and other clothes) for myself that fit and that I really like. 

Just an aside -- I'm going to start saving up for a coverstitch machine.  It's basically a serger with the added ability to sew a "coverstitch".  It will make working with knits a whole lot easier.
Back to the shirt... here's what I started with.  I loved the print, but definitely not the style of the cut.  Boring!



So I bought a little bit (1/4 yard) of contrasting fabric and turned it in to this --









I think I'm becoming a wee bit obsessed with obi belts. I'll be making a leather one from my stash at some point.
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I'll be linking up this project to these great parties--



Monday - Craft o Maniac Monday -- Pink Hippo Party -- Craft Catwalk -- Craftastic Monday -- Amaze Me Monday -- Polly Want 2 Party -- Making the World Cuter Monday -- Tuesday - Get Your Craft On -- Sew Cute Tuesday -- Tip Me Tuesday -- Take a Look Tuesday -- Show Me What Ya Got -- Tuesday Time Out -- Wednesday - Seven Thrity Three -- Wallet-Friendly Wednesday -- Show Off Your Stuff -- Create and Share -- A Crafty Soiree -- Whatever Goes Wednesday -- We Did it Wednesday! -- Your Whims Wednesday -- Thursday - Strut your Stuff Thursday -- Transformation Thursday -- Thrilling Thursday -- Friday - Remodelaholic Friday -- Flaunt it Friday -- Frugal Friday -- Weekend Wander -- Furniture Feature Friday -- Show and Share Day -- Fun with Food Friday -- It's Fun to Craft! -- Tickled Pink Fridays -- Weekend Wrap-up Party -- Catch as Catch Can -- Friday Flair -- Saturday - Funky Junk's Saturday Nite Special -- Saturday is Crafty Day -- Let's Get Crafty Saturday -- Sunday - The DIY Showoff Project Parade -- Sunday Showcase Party -- Creative Bloggers Party -- I Heart Naptime

Here's my first project from my stash-busting mission!

One night (a long while back when we still lived in Utah) I went to Macy's looking for some shirts [and pants too, but I never find pants that fit right].  It just so happened they were having a big clearance sale, plus an extra 40% off the lowest clearance price.  Sweet!  I ended up getting a bunch of shirts for $5-$7 each.  Unfortunately most of them needed some sort of alteration or refashioning.  One of them actually didn't need anything changed, which is rare for me.  Ha ha!

This shirt started off as a super overly baggy, tunic length shirt with a belt.  I'm sure some photographer made a teensie little model look great in it, but that type of fit just isn't my style.



Ugh. It took lots of pinning and frustration working with the 10+ extra inches around the shirt. I took it in at the sides (going all the way up, including the underarm and down the sleeve tapering to the cuff so I wouldn't have to bother with remaking the cuff to fit the new sleeve). I also added darts to the front and back (along the princess lines) for a better fit and cut about 6" off the bottom and sewed up the new hemline.



To finish it off I took one of the faux leather cords off of the belt, since it seemed like a bit too much with two.





Now I like it.

One project down, only 15 bazillion more to go!
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Linking to the parties on my Blog Link Parties page.