Recently I ordered and recieved new parts for my sewing machine. My grandmother can sew very well, so I;ve always been interested in making my own clothes, and I believe I have a way to do it now. I only wear black and other basic colors, so this may be more difficult for other people, but for me this was simple. I went to goodwill and got a variety of shorts,, shirtsm, and dresses. Always go for too big over too small, because you can always take the item in some. I have a sewing machine so thats what I used in the process of making these clothes, but you can hand sew or use fabric glue instead.
1. Dress to outfit
I don’t have any pictures because I didn’t think to take any, but I have tried this one recently. What you’ll need is a bodycon dress, elastic, and a safety pin. The dress needs to be one that you may not like too much, is too short, or a bit too big.
Take the dress and mark where you’d want the crop top to end (its best to do it on yourself). Once you have the dress deconstructed, you’ll need to hem the bottom of the top, and the top of the skirt; be sure not to hem it all the way across, leave a small space for you to thread the elastic through. Measure the where you think the crop top should end with a piece of elastice, stretching it while you do so. Once you have the strip of elastic, use a safety pin to thred the elastic through the hole and meet the other end of the elastic. Sew the two ends together and repeat this process with the bottom. Viola! New matching skirt and crop set!
2. Old jeans to mom jeans
Another diamond in the rough I happened to find, were these straight leg Lee’s jeans that fight me quite well. They came high up on my wait and my immediate thought was to turn them into some mom jeans. If you are using a sewing machine, be sure you have needles that can penetrate jean fabric. The first step is to cut the seam of the jeans from the bottom up to the knee. The way that was easiest for me to crop these were to flip them inside out, put them on, and use sewing pins to mark a know line. I used a zig-zag stitch to sew a new seam into the jeans. To distress them, I cut holes in the knees. distressed those holes further wth a cheese grater, and made some rips in the fabric sparadically with a seam ripper.
3. Old shirt to cropped halter.
Now this is one of the more difficult ones for me, and will be hard to explain without pictures (so you should probably youtube it).
First step is to cut the sleeves off, then crop the bottom how you see fit. Next cut the back off of the shirt starting about an inch under the neckline leaving a strip of fabric at the waist as well. Pull the cuts to make hem roll up. Cut the strip of fabric and the strip at the to. Trim these straps however you see fit and tie them around yourself. You may want to cut the neckline, and make it lower, but DIY projects are all about customization.
Good luck and Happy DIYing.