#diy clothing alterations

[werifesteria-art]

So, I'm about to embark on making this big old thick t-shirt into a psychobilly style vest.

While watching The Osbournes Want To Believe.

My plan is to cut it into a vest, add a lapel, buttons, and pockets, and paint a picture on the back of it, and collect horror/halloween/spooky/B-Movie related pins and patches and basically just accessorize the living hell out of the thing.

Already got the lapel made and the buttons bought. (Visual test below)

Doing some fraying tests on a bit of the sleeve to know what I'm gonna do to the arm holes.

WISH ME LUCK DANG IT

[ithidunes]

More progress on my green jacket......... I did the overlaid panels on the chest/pocket/collar ages ago, but I've been putting off the sleeves because. I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep them or not lol.

But I think it's turning out good! Mismeasured a bit between the panel width and the cuff extension but a cute pleat fixes everything :3c

[snowspiritt]

feeling pirate-y today 🪶🛞⚔️🏴‍☠️

[oneeyedcatlover]

this is a top i made out of a pair of apple bottom jeans and the end of an old gunne sax my mom had tailored. it’s not the best ever but i’m still proud of it. i didn’t really know how to sew beforehand but i learned through the process of making this top. i also turned that same pair of too big apple bottom jeans into a matching skirt.

[wastelesscrafts]

Project: bust darts in linen top

Introduction:

I recently found a white linen tank top while thrifting. It vaguely reminds me of Victorian corset covers, but with modern construction elements such as princess seams and a shirred panel in the back.

Linen's great: it's strong, breaths well, dries quickly, and it's easy to clean. The only downside is its tendency to wrinkle, but that's nothing a good ironing can't fix.

Either way, the top fit me everywhere except for my bust. Clearly the top was intended for bustier people than me. I took it home and decided to add bust darts to make it fit me better.

The project:

Darts are a great way to tailor clothes. They're basically small fabric folds that are sewn in place as to shape the fabric to fit your body.

[ID: a white linen top with embroidery and a button closure in the front, shirring in the back, lace details, and a flounce at the bottom.]

I began by putting on the top. I took my pins and pinched the fabric at the armscye into folds until I found the perfect place and length for my dart, then pinned it into place. I did this for both sides of the top.

I removed my top, laid it out flat, then played around with my pins until my darts where about symmetrical.

[ID: a white linen top with embroidery and a button closure in the front, shirring in the back, lace details, and a flounce at the bottom. A bust dart is pinned on each side of the front of the top.]

There's multiple ways you could sew a dart, but I ended up using teeny tiny whipstitches in a white thread that matches the colour of the fabric. You can barely see my stitching thanks to the linen's texture.

[ID: close-up on a sewn bust dart in a white linen top.]

Once my darts were sewn in place, I tried the top on again to see if everything fit now. It did, so I was done.

[ID: a white linen top with embroidery and a button closure in the front, shirring in the back, lace details, and a flounce at the bottom. A bust dart sits at both sides of the top.]

Conclusion:

My darts in place, I now have a fitted linen top I can use as both a summer top and as underwear. The neckline and armscyes don't gape any more: instead, the fabric's shaped to fit my bust.

As I didn't cut any fabric, I can always remove my stitches and reshape the bust if I ever need to in the future.

If you ever decide to try and sew your bust darts, don't forget to put on the underwear you intend to wear with your garment before pinning down the darts. There's a big difference between say a push-up bra and a binder: both will shape your body differently and will therefore need different darts.

[qprstobin]

They may be opposite ends of the style spectrum, but steddie is a diva4diva relationship you can tell they both put Soooo much effort into their looks they are fighting over closet space they are fighting over counter space they are harassing each other over how long it takes each other to get ready even though they are both meticulous while trying to look no effort

[bugginouttatheway]

August 2023

I went to my first convention so I made an Aziraphale cosplay. The shirt, jacket, and pants were all clothes I thrifted and then altered (you can see the difference before and after I altered them). I sewed the bow tie, and then the waistcoat and shoes were bought on Amazon (sadly)

Here's me at the convention walking between hotels :)

[ghost-of-you]

should be working but instead I’m here following the saga of falling apart clothes and shoes. and I have to say. something buried deep into the fabric of western sydney is the need to DIY ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING and I’ve lived in brissy for 12 years now and I think I’m proof that you can’t ever get that fully out of your system. like even my bris friends don’t get it. my soccer coaches get pissed off. I can’t stop. clothes get worn, then cropped and worn again then turned into rags for cleaning they never get thrown away til they’re just threads or dirt. shoes get fixed or mashed up with other shoes when there are just parts. sometimes fall apart in public and I have to walk home barefoot but it’s like. comfort shoes are comfort shoes and I get that it’s not that simple to find a new pair that’s Perfect and sometimes buying duct tape instead of shoes in a rush when you’re almost done with them anyway is preferable?? like throw away culture (I have to look at it this way, I work in sustainability which probably doesn’t help me hoarding of broken shoes problem) just doesn’t touch western sydney. and you run wild trying to fix things too that means your clothes get even more worn. It’s just how it happens. street cred. why not make a brand out of it when it’s such a novelty to most of the rest of the world??

I love this perspective, I do this a lot too (I just finished hand sewing myself a shirt because I did not want to let go of the original shirt so I had to cut around it, so I feel you) and I am personally obsessed with the way they frequently repeat outfits, because a lot of the times they look great so why not just wear it it again? I am also obsessed with the way that Ashton most of all just alters his clothes, the way he just cuts out the sleeves of absolutely everything is everything to me. The shoe thing I also get, I have changed the sole of my favorite pair of boots, like, 3 times by now, I am never getting rid of that thing, but Luke duct taping the converse for me is more about, not exactly safety, but in the end is safety because for that to finish falling apart and him ending up landing face first into the stage would be real easy with how much he jumps and just the amount of equipment around the stage, it could end up being a problem, I feel like when it comes to them being on stage, at least the shoes shouldn't be falling apart (because I will never complain of an outfit that lets me see more skin lol)

[noonehere-rightnow]

I think I fucked up one thing

so im painting this abt half a year (its bit time consuming and I didnt have enough time, so its one of half-dead projects which i love doing). and I just checked if red paint is permanent (enough), just like black and white are. AND ITS NOT. THIS LITTLE MF BLURRED WHEN I WASHED IT. (not on this pants, but yk). and now I have problem. i dont have any fixative and also I dont have idea which will be right for this type of clothing.

so if u know abt any fixative that actually works IM BEGGING TELL ME

[fastwiemagie]

Dress to skirt

My friend @pinkgothduplica had this dress that she liked on principle but didn't like the bodice part of. Why does the bodice suddenly have lace that gives completely different vibes to the rest of the dress? What's up with those voluminous shoulder straps? (Spoiler: One of them has since become a casual bonnet. Maybe my friend can take some pictures because I forgot to do that.)

A dress obviously already comes with a skirt part so the work was in separating the bodice part from that. The seam ripper was very busy! I carefully removed the black skirt and white underskirt from the bodice. I sewed those together again, so I could handle them as one layer. For some reason the top skirt was wider then the underskirt, so I gathered that down a bit at the same time. My kitty was watching me very attentively and also kept trying to sit on the skirt. Very cute but also inconvenient!

For the waistband I used the former waistties. I've ironed them open (after seam ripping them open) and cut out a narrow waistband. I pressed everything and sewed a tunnel for my elastic to go on in. I've had to improvise a bit here from my usual method because the dress had a zipper and I wanted to leave that in for the skirt for extra easy dressing. The waistband is also elasticated! I added a big fabric covered button in the end and made a loop out of the elastic.

The skirt turned out so cute and my friend is sure she'll wear it way more now in it's new form. She's not really active on tumblr anymore I think, but you can find here on IG as mag.sugar to see her great outfits!

[probably-an-alien]

I decided to cut up some old athletic shorts on a whim to see if I could use them as a sports bra. How come, they fit me better as a bra than any of my actual bras?

This is only the rough version I still need to trim off some excess fabric around the arms and line the raw edges, but damn, my chest has never felt so secure in any bra.

For anyone wondering this is roughly the way I cut it. I still need to add some darts to fix a bit of gaping at my shoulders and I might add another layer in the front for even more stability, but generally this is a great bra for me and I do plan to actually wear it in my day-to-day life.

[ithidunes]

SPIKES.... DONE🎉✨

next up is making some side panels out of this rad plant fabric and doing pocket-flap overlays 👀

[professorpski]

Make and Mend: Or What to Do with the Hawaiian Shirt?

A friend kindly gave me and my husband two Hawaiian shirts as gifts. Both were sized for men which meant mine, despite being called a size small, was oversized and boxy down through the waist, and then too tight where it hit the hips. What to do? 

Reworking men’s clothing into women’s clothing or into children’s clothing dates far back in history. Make and mend was the name of the effort during World War II when the conservation of fabrics was essential to the war effort. Often the idea was to take something like a shirt that was worn out at color and cuffs and use the remaining fabric to make something else. Here, the problem was fit. So I decided to leave the boxy shape, but cut down the length of the shirt and of the sleeves, and I pinned the former and rolled the latter until I liked what I saw. I also added 3 inch slits at the side seams which was tricky as the seam allowances were tiny.

The result is still a boxy shape, but not one that swamps me. It looks fine with skinny pants or skirt underneath which signal that I am not actually built like a box. It also makes for a lot of airflow which is nice in a summer shirt. These simple changes are the easiest way to remake men’s shirts into women’s unless there is a very large difference between the size of the man and the size of the woman, or unless you want to give up the collar. I will explain why soon, with some photos, but it has to do with the cut of the arm scythe, i.e. the shape of the armhole.

[feathertailedcentipede]

tested negative for covid but I'll still be self isolating. how many jacket patches can I make before my brain falls apart from loneliness

[wastelesscrafts]

Hi! Just wanted to share that sometimes it just takes confidence to be able to alter something yourself. Found this green asos dress for £6 at the thrift shop last year and wore it like that, but personally prefer having shoulders covered and I constantly had to babysit the part that folds over. Took the sleeves off and rehemmed the holes for a Midsummer Night themed event and attached the front fold so it would sit on my shoulders without folding back. Flowers are hot glued together and then sewed on so I can take them off again, for a Gwendoline Christie-esque Titania look! :D

[ID: three pictures of a person wearing a dark forest green dress. Picture 1 is a mirror shot of the dress in its original bare shoulders state, and with long sleeves. Picture 2 hows the dress worn with altered shoulders, removed sleeves, and faux flowers added onto the bodice. Picture 3 shows the altered dress hanging from a hanger.]

That looks so good! Love your new design! I hope you had fun at your event. :)