Fashion Forward February: And Everything Else
by Amy Brayfield
All this month, we’re looking at ways to make the lifespan of your child's clothes stretch a little longer.
Reconstructing clothes can be as simple as adding an appliqué to cover a stubborn stain or as complicated as ripping a top apart at the seams to recreate it anew. Whether you’re an adventurous sewer or just a mom looking to salvage a favorite pair of jeans, I hope these ideas will inspire you to try a little reconstruction of your own.
- Hand-me-down pullovers get a little feminine charm with this trick: Slice off the sweater just under your child’s bustline and the sleeves at the same length. Stitch the bottom of the sweater and the sleeves back on reversed, so that the ribbed bottom becomes an empire waist and upper sleeve details. It’s a surprisingly effective change that’s not hard to create.
- Outgrown dresses get new life sliced at the bust and stitched to a similarly sliced T-shirt that fits. If it’s long enough, the new combo works as a dress, but it’s cute as a tunic over jeans or leggings, too.
- No artistic talent? Google is your new best friend. You can type “butterfly silhouette” or “lion silhouette” into Google images and get totally traceable shapes for your appliqué. Just print and cut out.
- While it’s technically not reconstructing clothes, I’ve had great success turning thrifted pillowcases into summer dresses (just add straps and elastic at the top) and pajama pants (add foldover elastic to the seamed edge once you’ve cut it open, then slice up the middle of the pillowcase and sew up each side to make wide legs). Both are really cute.
- Loose dresses that no longer fit can be turned into skirts. It’s as simple as cutting off the top with the sleeves and the neck and adding foldover elastic to the top to make a new waist.
- Grubby sweatshirts get new life sliced up the middle of the front and trimmed with grosgrain ribbon or bias tape. We call them “pajama sweaters” at our house, where we try to keep the heat turned down as much as we can and often grab an extra layer for the hour between bath and bedtime.
- Outgrown T-shirts can become tank tops if you cut them off at the sleeves, add ribbon straps and (if you want or need to) ribbon trim to hem.
- Old T-shirts make great hoods to “winterize” another T-shirt that fits. You can find free hood patterns online and stitch them to a T-shirt.
- Clothes that won’t restyle make great scrap fabric for stuffed toys or patchwork. This is an especially great use of baby clothes that you’re too sentimental to send to Goodwill but that you know you won’t be using again.
Recycling clothes is a great way to save money, but it’s also a great way to help your kids develop their own sense of style.
Amy Brayfield is a cheapskate, and she's not afraid to admit it. In addition to torturing her children by not taking them to McDonald's every day, she writes about parenting and family topics for various national and local magazines. She lives happily in the Midwest with her husband and two children.
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