How to Make Old Clothes New
Turn your old clothes into new outfits to wear. Save money and reuse your old clothes in crafty ways to mix and match new outfits. Use the basic shape of an article of clothing to use as an outline to create a different style or piece of clothing.
Materials
- Sewing kit and supplies
- Seam Ripper
- Fabric Scissors
- Iron and ironing board
- Sewing Machine (optional)
- Old Clothes
Methods
- Create a sweater jacket using the sleeves from an old sweater and the body of a jacket. Cut the sleeves off a sweater leaving two inches of extra fabric past the thread attaching the sleeve to the body of the sweater. You need the extra sweater fabric to attach sleeves around the shoulders and under the armpit. Cut the sleeves off the jacket and save them for the next project. Sew the sweater sleeves onto the jacket armholes at the sleeve seam threading on the sweater. This helps because the sweater fabric will not fray if you maintain the seam on the upper portion of the sleeve.
- Make cuffs or embellishments for your other outfits using the sleeves from the old jacket. Make cuffs to sew onto the ends of other long sleeved shirts to give them a cool new look. Use the sleeve as a source for denim to use as patches on your new designs. Iron pieces of cloth as you sew that your edges retain a crisp silhouette.
- Make iron-on patches out of your old t-shirts or other materials. Apply iron-on patch backing found at many craft stores. Iron the patches onto jackets, pants, vests or any article of clothing that needs something new.