Hi Pat!

It's Dianne Hadaway (former About Guide to Single Parents)! I'm glad to find you here! I was hoping to find a way to email you. I hope all is well with you. I have been very busy and happy since leaving About and have switched gears and opened my own online boutique where I sell the items I design and sew. I kinda jumped in here before reading rules so I don't know if it's ok to post a link to my site, but I would love to share with the readers here that I also have a free pattern with full color pictures and easy to follow instructions for making a very nice lined and even reversible totebag.

Please let me know if it's ok to post a link to it.  And I'd love to chat with you through email sometime!

Blessings

Dianne

DIanne, it's great to see you here! You can email me at pat@stretcher.com - my email address is in the Guidelines.

I'd love to catch up on what's happening.  

 Edited to add: Please do post a link to the pattern. I'm sure people will want to see it.

Dear All, this is a response to everybody, just an added note on how to recycle something that may be hard to think of, of how to recycle.  I'm talking about solo pierced earrings, when you have lost one.  Here are 2 ways to use them over again:

(1)  Use it as a "thumbtack" on a bulletin board.  You just need to push the prong down enough for the earring to stay on the board in a stable position.

(2)  Wear it as a broach/pin.

Hope this helps.

 

 

Hi Dianne! Nice to see another Abouter here! (I'm the Drawing/Sketching Guide)

 I just got back from Easter with family, and while we were away, I got two sewing books, one a Simplicity book with lots of stuff about following patterns and modifying them, and another folder, a partwork magazine collection - it isn't complete but has LOADS of stuff on basic sewing - all that really basic technique from sewing various hems, to shaping shoulders, making darts, all sorts. All for two dollars at the thrift store!

I also got a beautiful hand-crocheted cotton waistcoat - really nice work, probably done by somebody's gran by the look of it - I'm just going to put some nice buttons on it.
 

I buy all my nice clothes at a local, very cheap thrift store and I must say that I do as little repurposing as possible.  I never buy grungy clothes (like tshirts and shorts) since I can always get them from friends for free.  Over the years, I've found that it's really hard to make major changes to garments like suits without making them look "changed".  That said, if it's cheap enough I'll do it.  Simpler garments like skirts and some shirts aren't such a challenge to "fix".

I just bought a 2 piece suit for $3.50 that had a too long skirt, and old buttons.  I'll replace the buttons, shorten the skirt but that's it for structural changes.  I really get angry when I think back to the days of buying $200 Tahari suits at Loehmanns.  Okay I probably looked 10% better but it wasn't worth it then and definitely not now. 

One thing I've seen in magazines is that clothes mostly stay the same but the accessories are different and are really the cute parts of the outfit.  Just saw a fashion magazine today that had the cutest open toe white slingbacks with little ladybugs on the toe part.  You could make little ladybugs or other cute designs and put them on plain slingbacks.  I haven't tried it since I don't have the time these days but it seems like a really easy way to cute up an outfit.  I'm always on the lookout for cute bags that I can gussy up.  Also, cute cheap jewelry is a good way to set off an outfit.

oh yeah and i've sewn a lot in my time but I found that buying clothes from a really cheap source and doing minor alterations by hand means I could get rid of my sewing machine (I have a small living space) and spend less time sewing and the end product was actually cheaper than if I had sewn it myself (unless I was really lucky and got a deal on the fabric).  your mileage my vary depending on where you live.  I live around a lot of wasteful people so I get a lot of good stuff.  Just bought a khaki skirt by ann taylor for $2.  some cute slingbacks for $3.50 and a dress from target for $2.50 that i'll have to tailor to fit me a bit.

I do some of the first two things.  I shop at Joann's clearance section and raid my mother's unused stash of fabric... and I also hit up thrift stores for things I can repurpose.

One really cool thing to do at thrift stores is to look for knitted sweaters that can be unraveled.  (You have to buy ones that weren't knitted & then cut and sewn - they have to be whole pieces.  http://neauveau.com/recycledyarn.html has a great tutorial on how to figure out which kind is which, and how to take it all apart.)  It's one of the few times when I go into a clothing store and my size doesn't matter - in fact, bigger is better, because I can get more yarn that way!

And compared to shopping at local yarn stores, which are the only places to get the fancier, nicer wools... you can get some really nice quality yarn for very cheap this way.
 

 I've actually been doing this for ages.  I'm reasonable at sewing (not like my award-winning, quilter mom) but I get by.

 

I've taken pretty velvet tops, added a skirt to them, and had gorgeous dresses. 

 

I've changed necklines on a million things.  I hate turtlenecks, and I've redone a gazillion tops to have a neck I can tolerate.

 

I've taken a beat up dress, a beat up pair of jeans, and cut the jeans for the "yoke" of a skirt, added, the skirt from the dress, and had a cool hippie skirt. 

 

Recently I've been altering all my jeans like mad, adding trim and embellishment.  I decided I was done with boring jeans. (grin)

Just a few of my re-fashioning projects over the years:-

1. Using remnants in my fabric stash, I've jazzed up secondhand clothes with applique!   By the way,  applique is also a great way to disguise holes and stains
2. Add some contrasting fabric to lengthen too-short jeans leg.  The first time I did this with older DD's jeans, she was over the moon!
3. I've cut shorts/ summer tops from the skirts of adult dresses for the girls when they were little.
4. I used the velvet from a thrift store formal dress to make a purse, which I embellished with a brooch that I already owned.  I needed an evening bag and had no money to buy one.
5. Converted a too-short long sleeved shirt into a short sleeved shirt for my stepson.
6. Cut the bodice off a dress - the dress was hideous and the bodice part fit really badly.  Spent a few minutes putting elastic in the waist of the skirt portion and ta-da! a new skirt was born!

While watching "What Not To Wear" a few months ago, I saw a tip I'd never thought of before.  The makeover candidate was very tall and slim and had all sorts of trouble with sleeve and pant lengths.  She bought a corduroy blazer that was a bit short in the sleeve.  The solution?  The sleeve was lengthened with a trim of a coordinating suede fabric.

Have you ever checked out Wardrobe Refashion?  Lots of refashioning ideas there.  Here's the link:

 http://www.nikkishell.typepad.com/wardroberefashion/

Enjoy!

 here is something I do is when a t-shirt is worn out where you cant wear it in puplic i take it and cut the sleves off and wear it around the house and sleep in. Also you can take old blue jeans and make bags out of then or cloths pin bags,