Hi Sewing Friends:

Recycle clothes kids love.

This is a great sewing project that you can do together with your child or grandchild.  Let the kids help express their creativity.  There is no right or wrong way to do anything.  Let them be the designers of a new creation!

When young grandchildren come to see their grandparents, they always bring their treasured toys, favorite blanket, pillow and of course, their “special” clothes that they just can’t be without whether it fits or not.

Children grow like bean sprouts in great spurts sometimes.  It seems that suddenly they are all arms and legs.  Their clothes often still fit their body, but the sleeves and pant legs are about 4 inches too short.  This seems to be particularly true with pajamas, pants and long sleeve shirts. 

The kids don’t want to give them up.  And, the parents don’t want to spend a fortune trying to keep up with the growth.

Recycled clothing is very fashionable these days.  Get your creative juices flowing and recycle some of the kids clothes. 

Don’t forget that most kids love things that are soft and comfortable. . .don’t we all?

When clothing becomes too short for your kids, here are some suggestions to recycle them and keep everyone happy.

When long sleeves and long pant legs get too short, cut them off and make short sleeves and shorts.  You can sew a regular machine hem if you want.  Some kids love the ragged, frayed look, so you don’t even have to hem anything for them. 

Or, you can try an easy hemming method like the “fake cuff” technique.  Or, just serge the edges with your overlock machine.  Try using a decorative thread in the lower loopers.  Make sure it isn’t “scratchy”.

Does your little girl have a favorite dress that is too short?

Cut it off at the underarms and sew a skirt with an elasticized waist.  If you don’t have enough fabric at the top of the skirt, use wide ribbon or coordinating fabric to make the waist band. 

If you want to make the skirt longer, add a coordinating fabric band or ruffle at the bottom and sew a simple blouse to match. 

You might also cut the skirt apart and add an insert of lace or eyelet or whatever that will blend well.  Sew a matching head band or pony tail scrunchy.

Another idea for a waistband for pull on skirts or pants is decorative wide elastic or a rib knit or even velour.

Sew a skirt out of old jeans just like the “big girls”.  Add a colorful print ruffle to make it longer if you need it.  See the Free Ruffled Jeans Skirt here.

What about the boys? 

Try making pull on pants out of old bib overalls or coveralls for the boys.  Cut them off for shorts or make them longer by adding a cute kids print as a band or cuff around the bottom of the leg.  Repeat the print on his tee shirt in an applique or a shirt pocket.

You can also extend long pant legs with ribbed knit bands or use velour here, too. 

Need more width?

Stitch contrasting or coordinating fabric strips between side seams and underarms of sleeve seams.

Make a jacket out of an old coat.  Cut the coat to whatever jacket length you want.  Extend the sleeves with rib knit bands.  You might even want to sew the rib knit to the bottom of the jacket, too.

Make a vest out of an old jacket.  Old denim jackets make really cool vests.  Let the kids paint or glue “sparkles” or decorate them with buttons, or whatever they want. 

Help them make a tank top or camisole top out of a favorite tee shirt.

Kids love to sew fabric “yo-yos” and put them on their clothes, bags or ball hats.  Try it!  Yo-yos are the perfect patch to cover up small holes in clothing.

The ideas are endless.  Look at ready-to-wear!  You can do this!  It’s fun, too!  And it presents another opportunity to share more quality time with that special young someone in your life.

It just makes sense!

To Your Sewing Success,

Marian

PS:  Share your ideas for recycled clothing with us. 

Recycle Kids Clothes

 

 

 

 

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 10:39 am and is filed under Sewing Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.