Green Sewing in March

There is a structure on my sewing desk. It is not a piece of art or a decorative lamp it more resembles a growing mountain or possibly a volcano that is ready to erupt. it is my friends this …

my mending box.

Urgh it grows so quickly with three active kids who have falls, accidents etc that inevitably leave little rips or holes in their clothes. I am not sure if it is the thrifty momma or the green momma in me that says “I will mend it”. In addition to these regular cloth altering experiences my children have we also have a problem with little unexplained holes. This has baffled me for months. I was getting very upset because after buying new clothes for the kids I would find these tiny little holes in them a week or two later. I was thinking it was the washing machine, or pegs but I have since discovered there are little moths here that are called “sweet cotton moths” and they get into your clothes and munch away. But they are particular I tell you as I am finding the holes in knit fabrics only. I have tried in vain to get cedar balls or spray here as I hate the idea of moth balls near children’s clothes but no one sells it so in desperation the moth balls will be going in this week as we clean out the cupboards. Anyway I digress, sorry about that. In a nutshell I have a lot of mending! But wait there is more! How about this bundle …

it is my upcycle / repurposing bag. This is filled with clothes that are new or barely worn, wrong size and didn’t return them for what ever reason so basically in really good condition and I liked the fabric. Don’t get me wrong we donate a lot of our clothes to various charities but I do like to keep some things with the intention of refashioning them into other clothes etc.

So March, being the month of St Patrick and all that is green, has now been designated as my Green Sewing Month where I will try to get through my mending and upcycle some of the kept clothing.

Lets kick off with a quick upcycle of this men’s dress shirt into some shorts for the kids.

Step 1 take off any buttons if you are not using them as part of the refashion. (don’t forget the buttons on the sleeves and the spare one inside).

Step 2. Take out your favourite shorts pattern and cut out your pieces. I liked the slick double seam down the side of this shirt so I kept that as the seam that runs down the side of the shorts.

If you do it the way I have by using the side of the shirt as the fold then cut using the back piece. Then retrace the front piece on the front and trim it down.

You can see above I opened it out and then traced out the front and cut it down to size as the front is not as deep as the back on a pair of a shorts.

Step 3. Now that the pieces were cut out I was left with the top of the shirt and the sleeves. Shame to waste it so I went and got a pair of Eyads shorts and traced them to make a pattern and then cut out another pair for him.

Step 4. Sew the shorts in your usual method. after being cut these two took me about 30 minutes to sew up.

Step 5. Ta da! These are great little shorts for running around the house (okay just Sami doing the running not Eyad!). I like to have a nice stack of shorts for the kids so that when they come home from school they can get changed before hitting the yard etc. These will come in very handy.

I kept the front shirt pocket on Eyad’s shorts so he would have somewhere to keep his gsm.

Okay I am kidding, I was just too lazy to unpick it

So be green if you can this month. Tomorrow I will at least sort the mending box I promise!

Thanks for stopping by …

P.S. I never buy stripped fabric as I hate matching up and looking back at these photos now has just reinforced that idea LOL.