Christmas ties. Already.

This necktie is crafted from a repurposed Christmas tablecloth, nice and rich. It's available in the shop.

But I know what you're really thinking is, "Man, I wish my son had some awesome red pants like that." Right?

That reddish burgundy wine color kind of reminds me of the 1970's, a little bit of soul or pimp. But they're awesome (unique, anyway), and Christmasy-ish. And I made them from the sleeves of a dress.

Yes, this dress, which is not the color in the image ... but you get the dress idea. I can't recall what fabric this was, cotton/silk or cotton/linen/flax, something like that. It's a nice nubby cotton. I bought this dress with a gift certificate I received for a fundraiser I created and ran (which raised over $10,000 for the American Red Cross in one afternoon) about 18 years ago when I was a restaurant manager.

I loved this dress so much, so much that I had it in the closet patiently waiting for super-baggy drop waist dresses to come back in style, so I could get out my black boots and wear it again.

That has not happened.

The dress migrated to our most recent garage sale, where it did not sell for $2.

Pants fabric it became.

I'd intended to use the skirt fabric for the pants, but soon realized that the sleeves were perfect pant legs for River, and using the sleeves would mean I'd only have to sew a crotch seam and casing for the elastic waistband.

I laid a pair of pants that are just a hair to large for River over the sleeves.


I then cut the crotch and waist, allowing for seam allowances and casing.


After sewing the crotch seam I created the casing and inserted elastic for the waistband, as I'd done for these shorts.

Total time for this project was 15 minutes.

And burgundy red Christmas Eve church pants were born.