Refashioning is new to me...

So for as long as I have been sewing I have never thought of using the fabric from an article of clothing to make in to something else. I guess I just figured that there wouldn't be enough fabric or their would be seams, darts, buttons, etc in the way.  But one day while muttering in disgust at the cost of knit leggings for my daughters I thought to myself- hey, I have a ton of XL tee shirts at home in a box for goodwill (every time I turn around my husband is bring home another XL t-shirt from some city event, he isn't XL, I am not XL so all the t-shirts never even get worn and most of them only have writing on one side of the shirt!). And so the idea was planted. After making multiple pairs for each girl- different colors and some long pant length and some short Capri length  (we do live in Texas but I think it is nice to have them on under their dresses when playing). I starting looking on the Internet and found out this re-using of clothes for the fabric not only has a name- some call it Refashioning, others Upcycling, but that their are millions of ways  to take unwanted clothes and make it into something usable!!

So here are some of my leggings:

and here is a sweater dress I made out of an old sweater of mine. I used the idea from Make It Love It's blog.

I love the way the fabric flowers turned out! I found a tutorial on them on this site: Hey Jen Renee

I think it adds a little something special to the whole dress. I have several more sweaters that I want to refashion into dresses but since here in Texas the weather has turned warm I might have to put that project on hold and go forward with some other projects.