Another Book On Recycling T-shirts

While cruising through the book selection at the local JoAnn's Fabric store, I came across this little gem. I flipped through it and was instantly struck by what a good companion it would be to the Alabama Chanin book I already have. The clothes are made from recycled T-shirts, sweatshirts, and man's cotton dress shirts, all of which can be purchased at the Goodwill for next to nothing.

The cutting directions are a bit more complex than in the AC book, but could be simplified. Also, many of the items of clothing would be a bit skimpy for anyone over the age of, say twenty-five. But with those you could wear tank tops under the more skin-baring designs, or make the skirts longer, to make them more adult-friendly. I particularly liked a long coat made of sweatshirts, and a T-shirt with sleeves made from the cutoff sleeves of a cotton shirt.

Also, there is no ornamentation on these garments, but most would lend themselves, and be improved by, the AB treatment.

So, here it is...........Cut Up Couture

Finished Tank Top—Review

Okay, here is the finished tank top, with the new reverse applique covering the pink blob/stencil mistake.

My conclusions after this first attempt are:

My embroidery skills suck! I hadn't done any in, oh, about 20+ years, so this first attempt back into it looks pretty rough. Also, I've decided that, in the future, for most of the sewing of the shirts, and the decorative stitching, I don't want to use embroidery floss. For the designs I like, it looks too primitive. Actually, the whole design on this shirt is more primitive than I would normally like or wear, but since it was an experiment, I kept things simple...for now.

Don't use the blanket stitch to sew on the facings. Because of the way it is sewn, it tends to make the facings fall outward. Next time I'll use either a chain stitch or a Cretan stitch.

I liked doing the reverse applique, and I really liked the stenciling, even if in this case it got covered up. I also enjoyed the beading. So, I figure the pieces I do in the future will have more stenciling and beading, with less embroidery.

Next, I really want to experiment with refining the color combinations betweeen the fabric, thread, stencil color, and beads. It's one of the things I like about the Alabama Chanin clothing...it looks sophisticated and classy, rather than primitive. Nothing at all wrong with more primitive-type designs. Lots of people love them and look good in them, they just aren't my thing.

 A few weeks back I picked up some really nice XXL T-shirts at the Goodwill (I wanted something that did NOT have a pet food logo on it). One was a lovely pale grey/green, and two others were rich purple. Those will be the next ones I play around with. One of the purple shirts had a great machine embroidered picture of a Tibetan temple on it, which I'll use on something. When I was enthusing over it at the checkout counter, the lady ringing it up kinda just nodded her head and mumbled something like, "Oh yes, very nice." Obviously, Tibetan temples don't float her boat.

The picture makes the green shirt look more mint-greenish, but it's actually a soft pale green.

Final word is, I love the idea of recycling T-shirts. I like that I can use beads and embroidery floss I already have, although the fact that the floss is 20+ years old might have had something to do with the fact it tended to tangle...A LOT.  I want to try working with quilting thread, and also metallic threads, or adding beaded stitching.  I NEED NEW GLASSES OR I WILL GO BLIND DOING THIS STUFF.

For fun, I'd like to incorporate rubber stamping, or drawing directly on the fabric to add to the stencil design. They do a bit of the drawing on fabric with some of the Alabama Chanin clothing, and I loved the look. I'm also wondering if some of the techniques used on T-shirt material could be used with recycled sweatshirts, since it's cold so many months of the year where I live. Lots and lots of things to think about and play around with, to keep me busy during the hot summer—As if making jewelry, writing, gardening, and working horses wasn't enough. LOL

Playing Dress Up

I have spent a good part of my life dressed in a costume of one sort or another. Apparently I never outgrew that whole “Let’s play dress-up” thing.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. As a kid, I dressed as a beatnik, wearing my dad’s yellow V-necked sweater, his roadster hat, my own black tights, and lots of green eye shadow. For a party I went to in Junior High, I got bold, and went as Cleopatra...a white sheet wrapped around me, lots of fake gold jewelry, and more green eye shadow.

When my maternal grandmother came to baby-sit, she’d play the Nutcracker Suite on the stereo, and my sisters and I would put on all the frilly petticoats we owned and dance like ballerinas. She always clapped her hands and said we looked beautiful.

When I went to my first dance in Junior High, she helped me rig a rhinestone necklace in my hair so that it looked like a tiara. I thought I looked like a princess. However, the boys must have thought I looked like a dork, because I never got asked to dance.

During my high school years I dressed like a hippie. Or, at least as much as I could, since back then schools had dress codes. If your skirt was an inch too short, you got sent home. Since I was an art major, I hung with all the other outcasts, and we dressed as radical as we could get away with...lots of beads, painted clothing, and skintight jeans.

Already long in love with jewelry, I wanted my ears pierced in the worst way. Locked in a battle of wills with my dad, who thought girls with pierced ears were...well, not nice...I eventually wore him down about a week before my eighteenth birthday. When it took my other sisters less than no time to get him to cave, I was pretty miffed!

In the early 1980s I joined the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) a worldwide medieval reenactment group. The possibilities to play dress up were limitless. I dove into the whole costume thing with both feet. I sewed T-tunics, bodices, Elizabethan court dresses, Italian Renaissance dresses, head pieces, a Spanish Surcoat, you name it. Then I got my horse, and equestrian costumes entered the game. For about ten years, on any given weekend, I was dressed in a costume. It became so natural, that I didn’t even think of them as costumes any longer, but just another wardrobe selection from my closet.

In 1991, when my husband and I moved to Oregon, we dropped out of the SCA, too busy trying to resettle and get our life reorganized. And we were broke, so playing in any kind of venue was out of the question.

About five years ago we fell into a Golden Age of Piracy re-enactors group. Wow, no costume rules, no royalty, nothing but crazy fun people and lots of rum. A whole new way to play dress up. Out came the sewing machine, and I made new shirts, vests, pantaloons, and frock coats. I modified hats into tricorns, and we bought fairly inexpensive knee boots. Hell, we even bought real swords. Our pirate friends are some of the best people we know, and we still play at events like the Northern California Pirate festival, where we are members of Tales of the Seven Seas, and are also part of the crew of the schooner Aldebaran.

Then I discovered Steampunk. Now there is a grand way to play dress up, with even less rules than the pirates. We did Airship Pirates, went to a Bad Fairies Ball, and attended two Abney Park concerts dressed in our best Steampunk gear. It’s still one of my favorites —think Jules Verne meets Queen Victoria, and throw in a time machine.

But I still had all those great SCA costumes packed away, calling my name. A year ago we attended a local Renaissance/Fantasy/Pirate Faire — dressed as pirates— and hooked up with the leader of an equestrian group called Company of the Warhorse, who was also a knight in the SCA. Through him, we fell into the SCA again. At the time, we no longer had horses (long story—see Equine Madness and the Art of Staying Young). Didn’t matter. Within about four months, we had new horses, and a fun new group of people to play dress up with.

Reality check. Thirty year old costumes don’t always fit the way they did back then. Alas. To make matters worse, pirate costumes finished off my old sewing machine. Here we are doing the horse games again, and needing new clothes, saddle cloths, simple bardings, new hats...you get the idea. I see a new sewing machine in my future, and the renewed art of trolling the fabric stores looking for material that is “period correct.”

So, here I am, ready to receive my first Social Security check next month, and still playing dress up. Still wearing hats, lots of jewelry, crazy T-shirts, a frock coat I wear when it’s cold, and sometimes my pirate knee boots. At events, it’s anything goes — pirate, to Italian Renaissance, to mounted warrior. The only thing left out these days, is the green eye shadow.