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jessilng · 11 years

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Project Run & Play Week 3: Repurposing

I've been following stalking Project Run and Play for a while and I finally decided to take the plunge and sew along. Not head on, but rather I carefully selected one week of the challenge and plotted out what I could accomplish by the deadline. So, here we go...

The week 3 challenge was repurposing. As chopped up these garments I couldn't help but thinking about their past lives and how there was no way we had this in mind when we purchased them (well maybe with the tee, but I'll get to that later). For years, these garments have been shifted in and out of totes and bins, tried on and put back into the bins with the hope that they might fit again and then finally shuffled to the recycle pile.

I started with the pants. I figured they would be hard, like the most difficult thing I've ever sewn, so I gave myself a whole week to work on them. Did I mention our heat was out too? We had a warm streak of weather and a storm which shorted our thermostat. I passed the time waiting for the repair man cutting and piecing and serging. I left the house once, to run to the closest local sewing shop to pick up a new seam ripper. I broke the one I had trying to take the hardware off the pants because I was too lazy to reach across the table and grab my pliers.

These pants were one of my favorite pair. A nice heavy stretch twill in a slate blue. I bought them at the LOFT about 5 or 6 years ago, back when I worked in a PR department and wore shoes to work. Real shoes, the ones with pointy toes and some kind of a heel, and sport coats, and shirts that had to be dry-cleaned. I gleefully packed these pants away when I found out I was pregnant, sure that I would pull them out in 9 months and head back out into the workforce. But instead they sat in a bin for a year, then two years. Now a SAHM, I tried to take them to the consignment shop, but it was the wrong season, or they had too many pants. I tried to give them to a friend, but she already had a pair. Yet I still wasn't ready to ditch them in the recycle bin.

I chose Peek-a-boo Patterns Skinny Jeans to work with. I am now in love with Peek-a-boo Patterns. So much so that I joined the Peek-a-boo Patterns Facebook group. I found the group when I hit a tough spot in the pattern. I am still not sure how the faux fly should be constructed, but I had the zipper from the upcycled pant, so I followed this tutorial and put a real zip fly in instead. The kid also knows how to work zippers, so he thought that was pretty neat.

This guy is between a 2T and a 3T size, so I made the pant in a 3T, but I hemmed it to his length, which is much closer to a 2T. I also added the optional adjustable waistband which I pulled off a pair of his H&M trousers. Great little trousers, but the knees were thrashed. The elastic, however, was still very workable. I used six beltloops (the same loops from the upcycled pant), rather than the 5 in the pattern because I like the look of the double loop in the center back. I added a little extra top-stitching on the back pocket and lined the front pockets with a blue striped cotton. I didn't double line the knees in this pair, but after our walk to take pictures, I'm pretty sure I will need to on the next pair. The great news is that this pattern goes all the way up to a 10 year size! So as long as he likes the pants his mamma makes, I get to customize them to my hearts content.

He's pretty comfortable in these duds, which is a win for me.

The next week I set into this jacket. The main fabric was lifted from the DH's first college sweatshirt. Before I cut into it I verified twice that, yes indeed, he meant to add it to the clothing recycle bin. It had holes along the neckline and waistband, but it was large enough that didn't really matter for this project. I had been eyeing Shwin Designs Jude Jacket and while it wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I made my sketches, I think it added more character to the entire outfit as I worked through it.

The pattern is not fully lined, but I was drooling over a Mini Boden catalog with a friend and we came across the sherpa lined hoodies, which her boys love. I couldn't find any soft sherpa locally, so I settled on some navy ultra cuddle from Joann's. The lining added a nice weight to the jacket. It is warm and soft, perfect for walks on sunny days in January. I used more of the twill pant fabric for the interior piecing, the pant buttons for the sleeve cuffs, and the collar of the jacket came from the ribbed waistband on the original sweatshirt.

The zipper wasn't part of the original pattern either, but he hasn't mastered buttons yet, so I trimmed a coat zipper from my stash and sewed it straight down the center.

And then there was the patch. Originally I was going to stitch in moto details and skip the patch, but I wasn't sure what order I should do that in since I was fully lining the sleeves. I recalled seeing a magnet on my DH parents collection with the family crest. I asked my MIL to text me a photo of it and I stitched this fierce lion on some hand-dyed wool from Three Sheep Studio. Wikipedia told me that it means that we are conquerers who were patient in battle. As demonstrated here, he likes to point out the lion. He even showed it to the checker at the supermarket. I was proud and embarrassed at the same time. At least she didn't quite understand that he was telling her that I made the jacket.

And now let's talk about how this patch practically gave me a heart attack. I washed the jacket in preparation for our photo shoot. He had already worn it a couple of times and the cuffs were covered in toddler snacks and he found the zipper fun to chew on (for this reason I was glad I had settled on the plastic zipper instead of the metal one from my stash). See that beautiful wool felt? It is RED... and the jacket is WHITE. How did that not cross my mind. That beautiful hand-dyed red wool is sewn on a white jacket! When I pulled it out of the wash there was a pink ring about half an inch wide around the patch. So I freaked...then I googled and I was surprised to find out that Shout Color Catchers work for this. Actually, I didn't believe it at first, but I figured it was worth a shot since it couldn't get any worse. I pinned the color catcher sheet directly to the patch and ran it through the wash again. And it came out like this. As if it had never happened. My plan is to pin a color catcher directly to the patch for the next few washings until the sheet comes out fairly clean.

Whew. Crisis averted.

And once that jacket was finished, I set to work on the tee. For this I pulled out a maternity slub knit tee I had purchased at Old Navy when I was pregnant with this little guy. This tee did not work on me. It was thin and white and I think I probably wore it twice before giving up on it.

On a whim of an idea, I decided to print on the tee before sewing it up. I used kids craft foam and made a stamp in the shape of the crosses that were on the patch, mixed up a brown fabric paint and went to town, stamping in a grid pattern. After heat setting it I serged it up and down the sides and stitched the collar down with a twin needle.

I, like so many others love the Made by Rae Flashback Skinny Tee. I modified it to fit the original v-neck collar and a hemmed short sleeve, using the existing sleeve and bottom hems from the original garment. In truth, my lack of experience made me unsure about hemming a knit this thin. It worked out though, and after looking at a few tutorials, I was proud of myself for getting the v-neck flat without it gathering at the v.

"It's cold, mom," he said, "maybe we can put the jacket back on."

"Yes, son," I said, "it's been quite a day, let's walk home."

#projectrunandplay #repurpose #upcycle #skinnyjeans #peekaboopatterns #madebyrae #flashback #shwindesigns #judejacket #shoutcolorcatcher #printmaking #season8

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