underwear from old Tshirts

Most of our clothing items I buy at the thrift store.  The best finds are usually in the city and we find comfortable, cute, and good quality clothes for just a few dollars. I know the clothing industry contributes a lot of pollution, and where do the discarded clothes go other than to the landfill (ok some really creative places sometimes, but not on the whole yet)? In my opinion it is just smart to get the items I can at the thrift store.

Some clothing items like good shoes, boots, and underwear I usually do not get at thrift stores. Boots, sometimes. Underwear, never.  Leggings, hard to find at a thrift store.  So I found that my last pair of leggings had worn out and Phoenix was outgrowing her underwear . . . aaaaaand I really did not want to go to the department store to buy these things, or to spend a lot of money online buying them from far away companies that specially made what I am looking for.  I thought that maybe instead of cutting up our tattered Tshirts into rags this time I could try to make our underwear from them. I also secretly hoped that I could cut up some of Jerome's college Tshirts and get him some nicer ones if I had a purpose to do so.

Underwear:

Tshirt jersey style material worked best. I made a pattern from an existing pair. This meant cutting at the seams and tracing onto the new material with chalk.  Eventually I traced the cut fabric pattern onto some cardboard form a cereal box and cut it out. The cardboard stays straight and cuts more quickly. I sewed elastic onto the top only and it worked well.

One pair I used non-stretch material for the front and stretch (Tshirt) material for the back. Phoenix thought this was so comfortable she would not let me put elastic on, and they stayed up well.  An overlock machine makes things go so quickly!

Leggings:

I have bought stretch material to experiment, but will soon be switching to bamboo fabric to be more suStainable. I watched a tutorial online that showed me how to cut the center seam, from one ankle, up and back down to the other ankle as one cut.  Then fold the fabric in half so the cut seams form the two edges and use as a simple and quick pattern.  I think I made my first pair with a perfect fit in thirty minutes. Each successive pair was much faster and I'm really looking forward to working with the bamboo.

Dresses:

I find for travel it helps to pack my seven-year-old dresses. This saves space and washes when I have one clothing item to pack instead of two (a top and a bottom).  Pants can be added or not and we're ok.  So recently I have been letting her pick scraps of fabric that she likes and sewing them onto some of her Tshirts to make dresses. She adores this and feels pride in helping create her own clothing, also, my travel packing is simplified.

Pictures and links to come soon!