#13: "I Wear Your Granddad's Clothes. I Look Incredible."

You may have heard the new song playing on the radio called “Thrift Shop” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. That song is HILARIOUS and I think it should be the anthem for my blog this week. Check out the song (clean edit) below. (To watch the hilarious music video, foul language and all, click here).

Some of my favorite lines are:

"One man's trash, that's another man's come-up"

                            and

"They be like, 'Oh, that Gucci - that's hella tight.'

I'm like, 'Yo - that's fifty dollars for a T-shirt.'

Limited edition, let's do some simple addition

Fifty dollars for a T-shirt...

I call that getting tricked by a business."

My thoughts exactly. 

I've done a lot of thrifting in my life. My grandma took my mom thrifting, my mom took me thrifting, and I hope to take my future children thrifting. I remember looking forward to regularly visiting my favorite childhood thrift store St. Catherine's. But I also remember sometimes being ashamed to admit some of my clothes came from thrift stores to my overly label-conscious fashoinable high school peers. Now, though, I am proud to share my thrifting ways. It's smart, fun, saves money, and lets me make one-of-a-kind fashion pieces in a world of fads and replication. Props to Mackelmore for making thrift shopping cool again.

So here's a new one for ya. Ok, so maybe your granddad wouldn't wear it (hopefully not!), but I couldn't pass this one up at a thrift store for a buck.

What...is...this?

Before: Nighty night!

Oh man. Some kind of old fashioned nightie shorts jumpsuit with frills. It's pieces like this that I look at and just laugh hysterically.

The material on this is nightie is not very good for typical every day wear, but I'll see what I can do ;)

The first thing I did was take the buttons and loops off of the front of the nightie and kept those for later.

Buttons

 Then I separated the area where the shorts meet at the inner thigh. 

Shorts no more!

Next, I carefully seam ripped off all of the lace from the nightie and saved it for later.

Carefully removing the lace

Then I pinned and sewed the back of the neckline in a v-shape.

Pinned and ready to sew

After that, I pinned and sewed the gaping front space until just under the bustline, leaving the rest open to create a v-neck.

Closed up the front

I sewed a new hem at the bottom, and cut and sewed some short slits (about 1 1/2 inch) on the sides at the base of the new shirt to give more space at the hips. I cut and sewed a small slit at the side seam right underneath the armpits to loosen up the bust area a bit. I also took it in at the sides just a little.

New bottom hem

Short side slit

Next, I began working on the new sleeves. I wanted a short cuff sleeve, so I took some of the left over lace and measured out the length over the arch of my shoulder, and cut it slightly longer.

Left over lace

For each sleeve, I cut 3 pieces of lace, sewed them together, and sewed them onto the outside of the sleeve.

Forming a new sleeve

I sewed the sides of the lace so they would be even. Then I tucked the side edges into the shirt and sewed halfway down and around the new sleeve to secure the sides down.

Tucked in sleeve corner

I then moved on to the bust. I cut the remaining lace, layered the edges on top of each other, and sewed them together.

Pinned together

Sewing lace together

I put the shirt on, tucked the sewn-together lace into the front v, and pinned it into place (it's important to do this while wearing the shirt because what may look good on a hanger may not fit well on a woman's bust!)

Once pinned, I took the shirt off (of course) and sewed the lace onto the inside of the shirt, cutting off the excess.

Sewing the lace onto the front of the shirt

Remember those buttons I took off at the beginning?

Welcome back to the project buttons!

They made their re-appearance in this final step. I took the 3 buttons, arranged them at the base of the front v, and hand-sewed them onto the shirt. They were a simple accent that brought a little more texture to the piece.

Simple accent

And there you have it. I've re-used the elements of an old, weird nightie from the thrift store and turned it into a new shirt for just $1.

After: Nice new shirt

After: From behind

I'd give this one 2 thumbs up.

Thumbs up!

I hear January is a great time to check out thrift stores because everyone's clearing out their homes and closets to make room for their Christmas loot. Head on over and see what treasures you can find!

"I'm hunting. Looking for a come-up. This is freaking awesome."

Until next time, blessings.