DIY diva Crispina Ffrench buys most of her clothes at thrift stores, and then jazzes 'em up at home using her ace seamstress skills. Here, she shows ya how to turn a not-quite-fab sweatshirt into the hoodie you'll be wearing all season long. Get ready to dazzle!
What you’ll need:
Thrift store sweatshirt
Remnant of fabric for your pocket made of similar weight and
stretch as the sweatshirt
Embroidery floss
Sewing machine or hand needle and thread
Straight pins
What you’ll do:
1. Using the pocket
on a different sweatshirt as a pattern, cut two “kangaroo” shaped pockets. If
the edges of your pocket fabric will fray, add 5/8" seam allowance all
around. If your pockets are made from a fabric that won’t unravel, add 5/8"
seam allowance to the curved edges only.
2. Press under the
seam allowances.
3. Using embroidery
floss, hand-stitch the curved edges with a running stitch to secure the seam
allowances to the pockets. The fold at the pocket openings is important so
those edges don’t stretch.
4. Pin the pockets
onto the sweatshirt and sew them down using the same simple running stitch.
Think outside the box
Crispina says, "Pockets can be added to lots of garments. I have added cell
phone pockets to the inside center back of my running shorts and pants. This
placement keeps my shorts from pulling on one side due to the off- center
weight of my phone/pedometer/timer. I used T-shirt fabric for these pockets,
keeping them soft and absorbent against my skin. These pockets work best if
they are just as wide as and a bit deeper than the gadget they are designed to
hold to keep them secure even when bouncing around at a full-tilt sprint."
Excerpted from Mend It Better (c) by Kristin Roach, used with permission from Strorey Publishing. Photo by: Greg Nesbit Photography
BY CRISPINA FFRENCH ON 4/18/2012 2:30:00 PM
POSTED IN crafts, sewing, fashion