Garnet Hill Knock-off Dress $0

This dress only happened because:

1) the stars were aligned the week I was in Colorado

2) Mother Bear and SIL Steph are patient people who sat and watched me work at a snail's pace

3) Mother Bear had navy cones for her serger (mine only has white, which would have looked awful)

4) SIL Steph is a whiz at gathering AND determining the perfect hem length

5) Mother Bear and SIL Steph are both very good at teaching how to edge a neck opening

Boy was I glad I saved this ugly knit dress for over a decade! I originally bought it at J.Jill and thought I was Miss Thang in it. Now that I see the hood, the pockets, the awful sleeves, and the hood again (!) I think I was really Miss Thang Posing As a Polygamist's Wife. Eww. Why didn't anyone stop me?

You can imagine how excited I was when I saw a dress in the Garnet Hill catalog that looked like a ReDEUX possibility. 

SIL Steph taught me to first cut the whole dress up into parts. I had the bodice and the two skirt pieces. We made the waistband with some of the skirt excess. See those poor GIANT pockets off to the side? I felt bad tossing them. I probably could have made my dog an outfit with them.

After a waistband was made we gathered the top of the bodice to it. Hey, it's looking less homely already. I know, you really just want to see the hood get whacked. Soon, my pets. See the printout from Garnet Hill's website of the dress I was trying to copy?

No hood! Shorter sleeves! What happened between the beginning bodice and the end result was me hunching over Mother Bear's fab sewing station for two late nights while I listened to her Rod Stewart CD. I actually played his rendition of "Beyond the Sea" on repeat for the entire second night. Good times. I told my dad about the CD and he was amazed that ol' Rod is singing love songs and not rocking out like he used to. I digress. Mother Bear and SIL Steph taught me how to edge the neck. This was the hardest part. I had to do it three times to get it uniform. This is when I felt bad that they were growing old staring at me sew.

This is the finished product. I'm super happy with it. My one husband is also happy with it. (Get it, one husband?) It's comfy, loungey, machine-washable and dryer safe, and feels really good with leggings under it because then I can sit criss-cross-applesauce safely.

Emergency Chocolate Bag from Old Shirt <$2

Materials needed:

Old shirt to use as fabric

Fusible interfacing (Pellon 808 = what I used, $1.25/yd and this was less than 1/8 yd)

7" zipper (What I had to buy...about $1.25 at Walmart)

Embellishments to attach to zipper end if desired

Sewing machine

This is the tutorial I used to sew the zipper to the fabric and lining. Follow the tutorial roughly and just ignore how she's using vinyl and a longer zipper. I followed her instructions until the picture where it starts with "Use a safety pin...". Once the zipper is in, unzip it, keep the project inside out, sew the side seams, and then turn the whole thing right side out. You're done. I used a crochet hook to poke the corners out. You can start with any sized rectangle you want, but my rectangles were 7.5" wide and about 7" long.  

The shirt was pretty sheer so I ironed interfacing to the outer panel and let the lining remain thin. I added a crystal fob for the zipper pull with fishing line and crimp beads. You know, from my endless stash of fishing line and crimp beads.

I don't want to say a caveman could do it (because zippers scare me) but it wasn't bad.

I made this for my mom for Mother's Day. I call it the "Emergency Chocolate Bag" and it is for her purse. Every woman needs some chocolate at the most inopportune time whether it's in traffic, waiting at the doc, sitting in a meeting, after a hike, to enhance a flight delay, etc. Sometimes we need chocolate and we don't have any. Hence why I made the bag and a dozen refills. Also, sometimes you come across someone during your errands that is having a massively horrible day- like a grumpy checker, a mother of children having synchronized tantrums, or someone that looks lonely. Voila! You can give THEM some chocolate (still sealed...less creepy when coming from a stranger) and make their day.

I also made a "Kate & Will" version for my aunt that holds a bag of Haribo gummi bears, because she always has those in her purse. This isn't a ReDEUX since I had to buy the fabric...

Denim Skirt from Denim Jeans $0

Supplies needed:

Pair of quality denim jeans (well, nice from the knees up)

Seam ripper

"Jean Yellow" thread

Sewing machine

A minor dose of patience

My neighbor Mary taught me how to do this (and gave me the jeans...nice neighbor, right?) but I think there is probably an infinite number of internet tutorials available. Here's one.

The unpicking takes longer than the sewing. I enjoyed watching the "Jane Eyre" with my neighbor while I unpicked. The hardest thing is finding thread that is similar to jean thread...marigold yellow and super thick. I matched as well as I could, but it is clearly not identical. The black skirt was originally stiched with cream thread, so that one was easy to match.

I learned that if the original jeans are too small for you/skinny leg jeans you have to insert the cut-off leg pieces to form an a-line skirt. If the original jeans are too big for you, you can just cut off the legs and shrink everything down to a nice, sleek pencil skirt. Don't stress. Either way they are jeans you don't wear, so you aren't out anything if you screw up the first time. I want to remake this with wide-leg jeans so I can make a pencil skirt with a slit in the back.

Valentine Garland from Castoffs $0

Fabric for hearts: Huge basket of clothes for D.I. donated from a sister-in-law

(I rifled through it, picked my palette, and cut out as many hearts as I could.)

Fishing line: Thanks to the husband we have roughly 3,000 miles of it

Crimp beads: Bought a jar of 1,000 a year ago- they last forever

Crystals to innersperse on fishing line: Leftover from my sister-in-law's wedding decorations

Poly stuffing: Have an endless bag down in the crawl space

I placed two hearts right sides facing out, sewed them together stopping my machine with an inch to go, stuffed the 1" opening right then and there, finished sewing. Threaded strands of hearts and crystals with fishing line. Spaced everything evenly with crimp beads. Ended up making 8 garlands with the clothing shown.

Sweater Arm Leg Warmers $0

The arms of the D.I. sweater I used to make Valentine garlands with.

Cut the arms off of the sweater. Hem the unfinished edge, put the cuff on the ankle.