ReFashion I: Vintage Wool Coat

You all know I love thrift stores, but part of their nature is that you might find something you like but it doesn't fit you. Or you would like it more if it was slightly different. Well, a while ago, I discovered ReFashionista.net and was majorly inspired. Since I don't own a sewing machine or dress form, I have been slow to start refashioning things (although I do have a small to-do pile in my closet).

Fast forward to one of the many thrift store trolling days I have with my sister, and me finding a lovely red, vintage wool coat that fits me perfectly! However, I am kind of a shorty and this coat was almost floor-length. TOO MUCH RED! Also, shoulder pads = ew. But it was half-price day and I loved it, so $2.50 coat came home with me.

The alterations were pretty easy. The coat has visible stitches anyway, so that made it pretty easy for me to hand-sew, since I just had to keep mine looking about the same, and now having to worry about the thread being seen.

My room was messy and my cell phone was old!

So long story short: I made a long coat short! And ripped out the shoulder pads, obviously. With the length hacked down, it is much more flattering on my short frame. I would call ReFashion I a success! Apologies for the crap pictures; I'll have to remember to haul out the tripod next time!

Thrift Store Lessons

Yesterday, I wanted to go thrifting, so after work I drove over to our local Volunteers of America (because it's bigger, cleaner, better organized, and less smelly than Goodwill.) When I stopped at the stop light where I needed to turn, there was a creepy clown outside, holding a sign that said "Volunteers of America 50% Off." The parking lot was the fullest I've ever seen it, but when I was in there, there was a sign up about one color tag being 50% off and another be 75% off. So I wanted to make sure the clown had not mislead me into believing everything was 50% off, which resulted in having the following conversation with the nice lady running the checkout.

Me: Is everything 50% off?

Lady (emphatically): NO. We do this every last Tuesday. When you flip your calendar over, find the last Tuesday and mark on it Volunteers of America 50% Off Day.

Me: ... So, everything is 50% off today.

Lady (like it's obvious): Yes. And every other day this month anything with these colored tags is on sale. If it has a grey tag, tomorrow it will be 50% off and if it has a red tag it will be 75% off. That way there is always something on sale.

Me: Is there a way to know what things have which color tags?

Lady (like I don't know what colors are): It's the color of the tag. See? This one is grey.

Me: Well yeah, but I mean, is there some way to know what clothes will have which color tags? Like if I wanted to look for things with red tags, do they mean something?

Lady (like speaking to someone who doesn't speak English): It means it's 75% off. That's what the colors mean.

Me: ... Okay. ::gives up because she's finished ringing me out and there's a line behind me::

Perhaps I was unclear in asking if there was a code for the color of the tags, like grey tags are sweaters and red tags are high-waisted polyester grandma pants. But the moral of the story is: Volunteers of America has a 50% off everything day on the last Tuesday of every month. I bought six pieces of clothing for under six dollars. I call that winning. And of course, I brought back some photographic souvenirs. Enjoy.

Seven of the same ugly wig.

Haunting frog statue, circa the early 90's pastel era.

Portrait of the matador as a young man.

I did the modern version of 'flipping my calendar and finding the last Tuesday' so there's now a monthly reminder in my cellphone about the VOA sale.  I might have to go back sooner though, just to buy that painting so I can cross my sister-in-law off my Christmas shopping list.

First-Ever DIY: Thrifted Arm Warmers

We have already established that I love thrift stores (haven't we?) but now, thanks to Pinterest, they have a whole new dimension for me. What is it, you ask? Craft projects, my friends, cheap supplies for craft projects. I have quite a few blogs 'pinned' because they found something cheap at a thrift store and made something cool out of it. And today, I join those esteemed ranks. So let's get started.

I decided I wanted some arm warmers the other day. Because they're cute, and it's usually cold in my office where I type and click on things all day. Plus, it's getting to be wintery here in the NEOh and I don't like it. So there. My knitting skills haven't leveled up beyond Scarf World, and I've never learned to crochet, I had to come up with another plan.

The Plan: Find a cute and cheap sweater at a thrift store that fits your arms. (Obviously the rest doesn't matter since you won't be using it in this project.) Cut off the sleeves, add thumb holes. Ta-da! Arm warmers. 

The results of my thrift store trip. Total cost: $20.

Things You Will Need:
 - A sweater whose sleeves fit your arms pretty well (100% wool if you want to felt it)
 - Scissors
 - A bucket filled with hot water plus a little dish soap
 - A towel (if you are messy like me)
 - Rubber gloves
 - A blow dryer, or some patience

As you can see, I also had snacks on hand, as well as fabric glue and a sewing kit I didn't use.

Step 1: Cut off sleeves.
I recommend cutting them a little longer than you think you want the final product to be. I "measured" by putting one arm in, noting the stripe I wanted to cut, then taking it off and cutting it. If your sweater is not stripey, you might have to actually measure, or draw a line or something.

Step 2: Felting.
This is only possible (as far as I know) if your sweater is 100% wool. And it will cause skrinkage, so if your sleeves fit exactly how you want them to already, skip this step. The point of felting is to keep the material from fraying where it is cut by getting the fibers to lock themselves together, so agitation is your friend here. I did it because my sleeves were a little big, and so I wouldn't have to sew anything. I am, how you say, terrible at sewing.

Put the sleeves in the hot water + dish soap bucket. Put on your rubber gloves and pretend to be a washing machine, noises included if you are home alone and forgot to put in a movie before getting your hands wet. Do this until they are as felty as you'd like them to be. I didn't take mine all the way to true 'felt' because I thought they would shrink too much. You know it's felted when you can no longer see the original knitting stitches.

Left side: Original sweater. Right side: After felting. See how the stitch is kind of indistinct?

Step 3: Blow dry or learn some patience.
I wouldn't recommend blow drying them. Why? Because it took forever and didn't really work. If I wasn't so impatient, I would have spread them out on a towel and let them dry overnight. But instead, I continued to the next step with damp arm warmers. (If you have a clothes dryer, that would work too, but it might shrink some more, so keep that in mind.)

This is me invading the sleeve's personal space with my blow dryer.

Step 4: Cut thumb holes.
Once again, I "measured" using the stripes on the sweater. I laid the sleeve out, put my hand on it so the opening was under my palm, noted which stripes were under my thumb, then cut a hole opposite the seam. Again, since I felted the material, I didn't have to sew anything here. 

I cut through that black stripe because it's where I wanted my thumb to come out.

Step 5: Final touches.
For me this meant cutting off the fuzzy back edge and letting them dry the rest of the way. If you didn't felt, you'll probably need to sew your raw edges at the back and around the thumb holes so they don't fray. Or use fabric glue, or some kind of magic. If you want to add any embellishments, ribbon or whatnot, now would be the time to do that too, but I like mine the way they are.

Close up of fuzzy edge removal.

Step 6: Wearing your awesome project and taking dorky pictures of them. Ta-da!

Maybe if you'd wear a shirt with sleeves when it's cold out, you wouldn't need arm warmers.

Final Cost of Project: $2.00 for a thrift store sweater, so technically less than that, if I end up using the rest of the sweater for something else. If I don't, I'll give it to my sister since she cloth-diapers her kids.

Difficulty Level: Meh. It wasn't hard, just a bit time-consuming.

Satisfaction Level: Pretty high. I wore them the next day and they were toasty-warm. And since I picked a multicolored stripey sweater to begin with, they should go with lots of my clothes. (I am clever like that.)

The end! Hope you enjoyed my first foray into the DIY crafting blogosphere!

WTF: Thrift Store

Confession: I love thrift stores. I actually peruse them rather frequently, because when someone says, "I like your shirt," I like to be all, "Thanks, I paid a nickle for it!" It gives me a pleasant feeling of pride which if it leads to a fall, will probably only also be about a nickles-worth. {Aside: The more you type the word, "nickle" the less it looks like a word.}

Today, however, I'm not here to talk about cute and cheap clothes from thrift stores. I'm here to ask thrift stores the world's most pertinent question: WTF, mate? I would hope all of you allot some of your thrift store time to wander through the housewares and knickknacks {also doesn't look like a word} just to see what kind of random total crap has ended up there. I find weirdest, creepiest, most-random object and send a picture of it to a loved one with a caption that says, "I got you this for [insert up-coming holiday]."

FACT: This game is why camera phones were invented.

So without further ado, the proof. Here are my two most-recent Thrift Store finds.

WTF Dinosaur Mug

A mug with dinosaurs. Not that weird for a kid, right? Wrong. I was carrying littleQ when I saw this, and pointed it out in an oh-look-dinosaurs kind of way, then instantly regretted doing so. How do you explain sitting-in-a-pond-while-smoking-a-cigar dinosaur to your nephew? Furthermore, the other one is listening to a Walkman-- talk about waaay before his time.

WTF Ugly Pioneers

Does this one really need any explanation? Not only are those people hideous enough to make you wonder who owned them before they got to a thrift store, but I found the setup quite entertaining. It wasn't until I went to take the picture that I noticed the Virgin Mary clock/statue (?!) in the background, so I adjusted my framing to accommodate The Rule of Thirds.

I play this game almost constantly, so stay tuned for my next edition-- WTF: Coupon Magazine.