Thursday, February 23, 2017

Extend the life of children's clothing with iron-on patches

We are super fortunate to have a source of adorable and gently-used children's clothing.  Once her girls have outgrown items and toys, they get passed on to us!  Most look like they've been worn only a few times, some have stains (which I've gotten pretty good at removing), but there are a few pieces that were obviously very loved!

When items are stained beyond my capabilities, they join the "spaghetti shirt" stockpile.  Spaghetti shirts function as full-body bibs when we have meals or art projects that I know will stain good clothes.

But sometimes I can rescue a stained or worn item just by adding a little flair.  The floral pants below were in good shape and part of the regular rotation, but got stained while crawling on the ground at Luray Caverns (which is totally worth visiting!).  Around the same time, we were given a pair of pants that were looking worn at the knees.  I wanted to save them both!




I dug around in my fabric stash and found a red and pink striped knit.  I attached fusible web to the striped fabric first.  Then I traced heart shapes onto the paper and cut out the hearts.  I "dry fit" them over the stains/worn places, then ironed them on!  Easy peasy.




I thought my project was complete at this step, but my daughter ripped the hearts off after wearing the pants for less than an hour.  Soooo, I ironed on new patches, then sewed them down by hand with large stitches along the edge.  This took about 5 minutes per patch.



Now these pants have new life, and might even be cuter than the original!  Fancy companies put contrasting patches on their clothing and charge big bucks...I put these on hand-me-downs for free and in less than 30 minutes.  Score!  I did this to extend the life of these pants...but now I'm also thinking this would be a great way to knockoff the fancy children's brands!



The hearts were a cute shape for girls pants, but I think circles, squares, triangles, and hexagons would look great on clothing for both girls and boys. Do you have any clothing items that could be revived with a quick craft?



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Baby Octopus Costume
Toddler Octopus Costume
Light-Up Trick-or-Treat Bag