Dress & Cardi

Hello my people!! I haven't posted for a while, too busy fluffing about!. Have a whole heap of half finished bits and pieces and a HUGE stash of op shop finds waiting to be "reconstructed/deconstructed.

The crochet top (now cardi) is in the yummiest shade of cranberry. I cut it down the front and added a mens paisley tie that ive zigzaged and rouched till it made a lovely frilly type edge on the cardi. The photo isnt much chop coz my husband reluctantly took the photo (hes not talking to me because i got grumpy at him..............long story, we wont go there!!)

The other photo is my gorgeous friend Karen modeling a "work in progress" denim dress that was previously a pair of jeans and a mens tie. This will be in my Esty shop which is NOW OPEN!!!! arrrgggghhhh YAY!! fluffnnonsense.etsy.com CHECK IT OUT. xx Kel

Dowdy Sweater to Flirty Crop

This weekend we went to the American Legion rummage sale and this dowdy green 100% new wool sweater made in Ireland for approx 50 cents. I loved the color and the weave, but the wrist length sleeves and long body (with front pockets) make a fat figure look worse. The first thing I did was to cut it to about waist length. I folded the hem over and sewed it down. Next, I trimmed the arms about half-way up and repeated the hem process on those. This made an unexpected ruffle effect that I kind of like. I know wool is itchy so I lined the inside of the collar with a cream lace ruffle. I just folded and hand stitched it into place. It used a yard of vintage lace that came in a huge bag that I got for $2, so I'd approximate the cost at maybe 5 or 6 cents. The total cost of redoing the sweater comes to around 60 cents, and that's estimating high.

Jenny at Kerrfect!

Debbie Gibson Sweater to Cool Modern Shrug

When I was in New York the DIY Ninja and I each bought big baggy 1980's houndstooth sweaters at a thrift store. I think the sweaters cost about $3 each; hers is red/black and mine was white/black. I don't have a photo of the sweater before I started, but it was very similar to the one here on the left from Ghetto Vintage. The main difference between this one and the one I had is the flowers, lol, mine had none and it was a little more baggy than this one you see. It is so hard to find large size houndstooth prints these days, especially is sweater material. As soon as I saw it I knew exactly what I was going to make out of it! About a year ago I saw a music video by Miss Platinum in which she was wearing a very bold black and white checkered shrug that I absolutely fell in LOVE with. I've worked with knit before, but nothing quite so bulky as this was. Mostly my experience is with thin sweaters. I started cutting it before I even left DIY Ninja's house to come home. I cut it off around just under the bust line where I wanted it to hit me at plus about 1.5 inches. I cut a 3 inch wide piece out of the front from the neck down, cut off the collar band and rounded the front corners, again leaving 1.5 inches more fabric than I wanted to end up with. Being such a bulky knit, it took this allowance to be able to make a proper double folded hem on all of the edges. I hand stitched it all to make sure it was tucked in good so that nothing would come loose and unravel in the wash. The final touch was to go over it with a really sharp pair od scissors and trim any little piling balls off of it for that good-as-new look! I am so pleased with the out come that I have been wearing it everywhere for the last couple months! I also have so much of this fabric left over that I could make the dog a sweater or make a little bag or something; I'm undecided at present.

Jenny J. Kerr

Coming Up Short (& Sparkley!)

I guess I'll start out with my favorite recent fashion upcycle (I'm trying to get away from the phrase "Refashion", LOL) even though I posted it on another blog, lol I'm sure that will all be wiped away soon so I'll post them over here too.

I bought these black sequin shorts (left) at a Goodwill Outlet for less than $1 (they sell their clothing by the pound). I LOVE all of the new sequin trends out there right now, but the really sparkly, very heavily sequined pieces are always so expensive or simply just don’t come in my size. I’ve never worked with sequined fabric before so I wasn’t sure if it was all going to fall apart on me or not, but I tried to be very careful with it and I didn’t cut the fabric at all, I just took it apart at the seams.

The first thing I did was take them apart at the seam that goes down the front, around the crotch and up the back. Next I removed the elastic waistband completely. I then cut the liner out of the shorts and set it aside. I sewed the waistband side 3/4 of the way. I used the liner to cut a NEW liner in one piece out of the hot pink satin. I sewed the liner inside the newly constructed shrug. The edges around the neck were a bit sharp from the sequins so I cut a length of black velvet ribbon, bi folded it and ironed it. I started just past the underarm seam on one side and wrapped the edge of the garment in the velvet continuing around the neck and down to a couple inches past the underarm seam on the other side.




Jenny J Kerr

Dolls Jumper

OOOH! lookie there ! finally managed to put a photo up! YAY!! this was a long sleeve jumper that i cut up and added machine fancy stitch to stop the fray. the bow is a seperate fashion accessory on its own, a velvet blue bow /brooch clip that can be used to tart up any ole thing.