T-Shirt Cutting

I wrote in my last blog post about more economical way to make clothes. Admittedly, this was a little while ago now! The summer holidays have been great but with two small people wandering around much later than usual, it hasn't left much crafting time. So, what Caroline made has been not much recently. 

Anyway, I digress. Clothes. The next best, not to mention cheapest way to renew your wardrobe is to revamp what's already there. Whether its cutting old jeans down into shorts, or making skirts out of them, or using an old T-shirt to patch a pair of girls leggings; very few items of clothing now make it out of the door unless they are well and truly past it. 

So I needed a few new sports tops. Most of mine have, over the years, shrunk in the wash, and given my post baby stomach will never see the light of day again, I was in desperate need of new ones. I'd spotted t-shirt weaving on the Internet a while back and it looked really easy.T-shirt, scissors. Job done. Not even any sewing involved. So I nipped down to a charity shops and bagged myself some t-shirts for £1 each. At prices like that, does it really matter if it goes wrong?

So, take 1. 

I cut off the sleeves, cut around the neck line and did a bit of weaving to make the detail in the front. I won't go into how to weave as there are some fab videos on you tube which tell you all you need to know. I then cut about 15cm up the side seam and tied a knot to give this size 18 top a bit of shape. 

Number 2

This one I turned into a halter neck top. 

The instructions for this one, once again can be found on you tube, it's the Zumba top. 

As it ties as the back it fits itself! Once again, no sewing required. 

Number 3

 

This one was made from a mans T-shirts and has already successfully survived one Zumba class. Once again I cut the neck off, I cut holes in the sleeves, tied up the sides-

And did some weaving detail on the back. 

So three new tops, about three quid spent. And hacking holes in t-shirts is pretty good fun, not to mention highly addictive! Have a go!
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Dressmaking on a Budget

With the cost of clothing in supermarkets and some stores so inexpensive these days, and the cost of fabric off the roll going up, it is sometimes difficult to find a reason to make your own clothes. A simple shift dress can often use three metres of fabric, so you can easily be talking well over thirty pounds before you get onto the other items like zips, buttons, interfacing and thread to match. It quickly adds up. 

Children's clothes can be the best place to start as long as you have a child willing to wear your lovingly crafted garment! After seeing it done on the Great British Sewing Bee a while ago, I thought I'd try shirring, which is actually a really easy way to make a dress or top- and it's pretty good fun too!

A dress uses about half a metre and there are some great tutorials out there. I followed the one on the Martha Stewart website which was very easy to follow. 

Another way to keep the costs down is to mix more expensive fabrics with cheaper ones. This gorgeous Michael Miller cotton jersey was about £8 per half metre. 

Combined with some plain cotton jersey fabric which was well under £5 per metre, I made two dresses for the girls:

And a top for myself:

And there's still a bit left over for headbands too!

 

I got this book recently and I have to say, I totally adore it. It's called 'Feminine Wardrobe' by Jinko Matsumoto. If you check it out on Amazon, all of the garments are shown in the 'look inside'. The layout of the book is a little different to most as the photos are at the front with the instructions at the back. The sizes are pretty small too- I'm classed as XL and I'm a size 12, but as all of the clothes aren't fitted and quite floaty, it wouldn't take much to size them up. 

I have made two things from this book already, but it is worth checking the width of the fabric stated. In several instances its 1.1m, so if, like me your fabric is 1.5m wide, you need less length. It obviously helps bring down costs if you're given the fabric, which in this instance I was:

And this top was make from some cheap chiffon from eBay:

eBay is of course a great source for cheap fabric, although you can be taking a gamble on quality. Also never forget the charity shops for old sheets and duvet covers, and the offcuts bin at the fabric store. 

Happy dressmaking!

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