Making New Clothes from Old Clothes

When my children were growing up I used to take all my husband's, and my old jeans and shirts and make simple shorts with elastic bands for my kids. Then for my girls and Myself I would make little sun tops out of strips of material.

Here is how that is done:
Take approximately a two foot wide piece of material, fold it in half, stitch it up the open side. You now have a tube, turn it right side out, flatten it and fold it like a fan, in the most center of the fan make one line of stitches across all folds of the fan. This drapes over your neck, the fans pleats form the cups/front of your top. Now put a band around the bottom of the pleats. Make sure you have left it long enough to be able to tie it in the back.

Again the seam in the fan will be at the middle of your neck, the two sides of the fan will now cover your breast forming the front of the blouse. The base/bottom of your blouse is a piece of material about six to eight inches wide and about two feet long, for adult size, which you have folded in half. Fit the bottom of the fan into it and stitch all the way across closing ends. This is the bottom of your blouse and the tie that ties in the back of it. You now have a brand new summer outfit for yourself and your girls and it cost you nothing more then about 30 minutes of your time to make. Try it on yourself first and you will get the idea of how to measure for the girls. I usually just take the main piece of cloth and throw it over the neck see where I want it to fit at and go from there.

It may sound complicated but it's really easy.

By BC from Austin