Refashions part 2

First off I have decided to rename my youngest whom I refer to here as "Ape Baby". She is no longer my baby :-( She is growing up way too fast. She has graduated from the baby stage, so keeping with the same theme but a more mature name, I will refer to her as Monkey Girl from now on.
So back to my refashion...

My second refashion of the week was for Monkey girl. This skirt was super easy! Nothing too special or out of the ordinary, but we preserved "the pants" for a while longer.

Now if I can just get her to keep clothes on longer than 20minutes we will be good.

Under my Flittering butterfly's instruction she is trying to pose for the shot LOL

No that lip balm is "mine"! One of the few words she has down really good!

So My husband has a very select few pairs of pants he loves. It is hard to find him clothes, he is so picky, and believe me looks have nothing to do with it! It is all about feel.
These were one of those pair of pants. They just hit the end of their life, rips and tears everywhere.
I loved how the knee frayed. A detail I wanted to preserve in the refashion.

I wanted to use it as the bottom of the pants but her waist/thighs were too big to just use the bottom part of the jean so I had to use the fray as the waist.

Is just ripped the rest of the front all the way across then cut the back part as the grains rarely match up and end up rather uneven if I were to rip it too. I measured how long I wanted it and cut the base of my skirt.
I cut a 10" section off. 8" for length and 2"for the waste band.

I then measured her waist and subtracted the length of the front panel on the soon to be skirt.
The front section is always a bit bigger than the back section.
Her waist measured 18" and the front of the skirt measured just under 9.5".
18"-9.5"=8.5"
That was the length I cut my elastic for the back of the skirt.
In hind sight I would probably shave off another 1" of the elastic as it doesn't hug her waist too well if she is wearing big girl panties (its not an issue with a diaper/pull-up, it fits perfectly).

I measured about 2" down from the top and pinned the elastic to the back panel on the outside of the material.
One pin on each side and one in the middle.
I sewed it to one side of the back, just up and down, then to the other side. Then I stretched it out and sewed straight across the top twice to secure it in place

I fold the top panel over to encase the elastic, leaving that beautiful fray exposed.
I sewed along the top as close as I could get to the edge and then again around the bottom about 1/4" up allowing my fray to happen over time.

I then took some scrap jersey I had lying around and cut a 2" wide strips of about 4' long.
I sewed a gather stitch at the top of the jersey and made the ruffles happen.

I ran my fingers across the bottom portion of my skirt pulling threads encouraging a good start to a fray.
I then pinned the ruffle to the inside of the bottom of my skirt with the pins on the outside. My machine is a few years old. I like the top portion of my stitches better than the bottom, so I made sure the nicer stitch would be on the outside. I sewed around it twice to secure it in place. One stitch only 1/4" above the other.

There you have it! A lot of words for something so simple.
I love it! No Hemming, all rough edges, and "the Jeans" see another day!

The top of the thigh naturally curves in a bit as it hits the knee making a perfect A-line shape when turned upside down!
Another UFO out of my closet.

Refashions Part 1

We spent the weekend decluttering 2/3rds of the house, we sorted our unwanteds for donation and craigslist/yardsale. With a clean house, and a more simplistic feel of things I felt inspired to create today, amazing how that is. I hurriedly cleaned a few more things to get a head of things, and got things set up for an afternoon of creating.

I have a box of UFOs (Un-Finished Objects) in my closet, much bigger than I like to admit. Everything in the box (and on top) has a specific destiny, I just need to finish them. I hope to work my way thru the entire box within the next few months while the soldier boy is away.

Today I tackled two projects, I just reached for what was on top. A skirt for each of the girls.

I started with My Flittering butterflies'. I was given this shirt but it never fit, and the color never really worked with my complexion. My oldest loved it. She asked if I/she could do something with it for her. A ten minute project!

I took the shirt and laid it out as straight as I could, then drew a line across the gathered bust area.

I sewed the layers in place, then cut the top off.

I then sewed on bias tape adding the elastic as I went (so much easier than trying to feed it in later. I simply just pin the start end in place and as a sew line everything up encasing the elastic perfectly). Done! I just had to wait for My filltering Butterfly to come home to make sure the elastic was tight enough and sewed the elastic together and closed the little inch gap. Sorry no pictures, the camera died.

She loves it!!

I might fix up the layers up front a bit more so they lay better simply by tacking them at the top, but for now its good enough for me, why be OCD about it.
I'll have to try for better picture of it. The girls were rather excited and I had some awesome dance music going in the background, they wouldn't stand still for more than a few seconds at a time, plus I was letting them dance on the table, when does a mom ever let you do that?!

This is my girls favorite music video these days. Who can stand still while listening to this?!