Showing posts with label how to. Show all posts
Showing posts with label how to. Show all posts

Thursday, 27 September 2012

DIY - How to make lace edged/trimmed cropped leggings/shorts

Hey guys, I was scouring Ebay for some lace trimmed shorts, when I realised that I could easily do it myself! I happened to have some 3/4 leggings sitting in my drawer and after a short trip to get some lace, I ended making some pretty decent leggings. Leggings nowadays can be pretty cheap, and a metre of lace isn't expensive either. Both of these together are much cheaper than the £7+ leggings on Ebay.

What you need:


  • Leggings
  • Pins
  • Sewing machine (or you could hand sew) with appropriate thread colour matching the leggings
  • Lace (1m or more, my leggings are  a size small, so it may be safer toe go with 2m)
  • Ruler/measuring tape
  • Pen/chalk to mark your clothing
  • Scissors


Spread out the leggings so there are no folds or overlaps.

Take your pen/chalk and mark a straight line across both legs where you want your leggings to be cut. 
(Bear in mind that these will be folded up and sewn later on, so you may want to make it 3/4cm longer.) 

Taking your pins, pin across the line of each leg.

Make sure to pin through both layers of each leg.

Take your scissors and cut along the line ( don't worry if you cut a cm or two under)


Your leggings should look like this once both cut.

Remove the pins

Make sure the ends are straight, if you've cut a bit wonky you can straighten them up with scissors here.

Now turn the leggings inside out.

Take your pen again, and measure 2/3cm above the edge. Then draw a straight line of that height above the cut across the leg. Do this to both legs.

Using the lines you have drawn as a guideline, fold up each hem of each leg and pin the edges down.(Only pin through one layer, and pin all the way around each leg.)

To make sure that both legs are even, fold the leggings like this - if they match it means they are even. If they aren't even, you can adjusts the folds of each leg.

Take your leggings and sew up the hems you've just made with a sewing machine or by hand. Remove pins as you go along.

You should end up with legs that look like this.

Both hems sewn up.

 Check to make sure both legs are even.


Taking your lace (or even ribbon, whichever you prefer to attach)

 Pin the edge of the lace to the edge of the leggings. (You don't need to measure the lace, you can just sew until the lace meets where you started sewing.)

When using the sewing maching press the foot down to clamp the lace and the legging.

Do this step quite slowly, making sure the edge of the lace is sewn to the edge of the hem throughout.


 When the lace meets where you started, you can sew both lace edges together.

After sewing both legs, the hems should look similar like this.



Turn your leggings inside out, and you're done.

Many thanks for reading guys!



Tuesday, 25 September 2012

DIY - How to make belt loops for trousers/pants


I recently bought some great tailored shorts from Ebay, but they were  little loose, so instead of making them smaller I added some belt loops. This saves on resewing if my size changes in the future. Here I used some spare velvet ribbon I had lying around, you can use anything you want providing it's washable and can be sewn.

Stuff you need:


  • Item of clothing you want to sew
  • Pen/chalk - something to mark your clothing with
  • Pins
  • Material you want to use for the loops
  • Thread
  • Needles
  • Sewing machine (optional, you can hand sew instead)
  • Ruler/measuring tape to measure where you want to mark your clothing


How to:


Measure out  on your clothing where you want the loops to go. I didn't have any chalk so I used a whiteboard pen to mark out where I needed the loops to go.









Here, you can see where I've marked out the line, and I did this 5 times - 2 on the front, 3 on the back. The pen is noticeable, but not too bright. You can use any colour that you like, just make sure it comes off in the wash.








 I then cut out 5 strips (one for each line) each 6cm long (you made need longer/shorter) and I folded over each end and hand sewed them. Make sure to start and finish at the back, so the knots don't show.









Here's what they should look like on the front and back.

Now pin each strip onto each line you made, and make sure to adjust when necessary, as the lines are only guidance and may not be 100% accurate. I spent a good few minutes adjusting the placement of each strip.




Use a sewing machine to sew each strip on accurately. (If you don't know how to use a sewing machine there are some great YouTube videos out there or you can just hand sew.)











Final product:






Thanks for reading guys!

Monday, 24 September 2012

DIY - How to dye suede shoes black

I bought some  booties a while ago, but the shade of blue/dark teal was lighter than I thought so I couldn't really combine it with anything.  I decided to dye them black, because black goes with ANYTHING.

So for anyone interested, here's how to do it!


HOW TO DYE SUEDE SHOES:

Stuff you need:

 Tons of newspaper/ plastic mat/ something to cover the floor
Or you could do it outside.

The shoes
Brush out any bits with a suede brush/hard tooth brush. Make sure shoes are clean/dry.

Suede spray/dye 
I used spray "suede restorer" but it worked.

Gloves 
                                              
Masking tape

For clean up/ removing dye stains:
My shoes had plastic and metal studs on them, so this if for cleaning those areas which accidentally got stained.

Nail polish remover

tissue

cotton swabs

How to:

  •  Masking tape off any areas of the shoes you don't want dyed. 
  • Make sure to use many small pieces to cover up any curved areas of the shoe.This takes a lot of time, but trust me it's worth taking extra care when doing this.
  •  Place the shoes on the flat surface you have heavily covered as the spray may drip/splatter.    I actually stained my carpet doing this, so be careful.
  • Spray the shoes in quick strokes, spray about 15cm away from the shoe. 
  • The spray I used recommended to wait one hour after each application. Once I covered both shoes, I left them to dry for about an hour and came back later to do a another layer and waited another hour e.t.c. Do as many layers as you want. 
  •  Leave the shoes to dry for a couple of hours, better yet, a day. 

I ended up using the whole can on one pair of shoes - I'm sure if the shoes were a lighter colour I could have used less layers of spray. 


All the things I ended up using.


Timpson Suede & Nubuck Restorer


As you can see, I used loads small pieces of tape to layer up.


The zip is still blue, but it's dark enough so it doesn't stick out.



Final product! 


Without flash
(You can see how I cleaned the stained buttons underneath)



With flash
Weirdly, when I used flash I found that the shoes looked as if they hadn't been dyed at all! 

How to remove dye stains:

Using some nail varnish remover I managed to clean off the stains of the dye.


Cotton swab dipped in nail varnish remover. Do this step very gently! I did it too rough and  I ended up removing a layer of the plastic. It's better to surround the area as I ended up removing a layer and tiny flecks of plastic were going onto the shoe.
 Change cotton swabs whenever you need to!
They were a little bit patchy but it wasn't too noticeable until you got really close to the shoe. 

Without flash
 Slightly patchy
 With flash


Make sure the wipe the studs/buttons with a damp tissue afterwards to wipe off any excess remover!

Thanks for reading guys! 
:D