Reinventing tired garments and accessories can be a thrilling challenge especially once you're motivated by Subversive Seamster. Detailed instructions and techniques are clearly spelled out making them easy to apply to any castaway.

Written by young, hip fashionistas, Subversive Seamster will instruct, amuse and inspire you every step of the way. From shopping for fashion-finds-in-waiting to fine tuning your sewing skills, the authors reveal the secrets for transforming tacky or outdated into stylish, sexy, downright stunning!

STOP! Don't toss that awful bridesmaid gown till you've read this book!

• 30 incredible projects, from flirty skirts to trendy tops to bling earrings, many taking surprisingly little time
• Know right from the get-go: what you'll need, techniques you'll use, time to complete
• Projects just right for all levels
• Complete prep and finishing how-to's, from first cut to last divine detail
• Make It Your Way ideas to add personal pizzazz
• Sewing 201 chapter to "...kick your sewing skills up a notch!"
• Inside tips for bagging great bargains (and of course rescuing your own old friends from corner-of-the-closet oblivion)
• The most fun you'll ever have at your sewing machine!

About the subversive seamsters...
Melissa Alvarado, Hope Meng and Melissa Rannels co-own San Francisco's Stitch Lounge, a drop-in supportive sewing studio. Self-taught seamsters and fearless thrift shoppers, they're not only great sewers but great teachers as their friendly "here's how to do it" directions and "see how" drawings prove.

Introduction 2

Chapter 1: Find That Needle in a Haystack! 4

Chapter 2: Sewing 201 14
Corner Your Pivoting Skills! 16
Top This Decorative Stitching Technique 16
Flower Power 16
Everyone Loves Patches 17
Lettuce Show You a Great Finishing Technique! 18
Ruche Me Up, Ruche Me Down 19
Casing the Joint 20
Get All Ruffled up 23
Take It in a Notch 24
Darts, Anyone? 26
We Like Buttonholes and We Cannot Lie 27
It's Hard Out there for a Pin Tuck 30
Cutting Tips 32
Edgy Edges 32
Garment Maximus 32
Dyeing for Some Color 33

Chapter 3: Hot Tops 42
Sham on You 45
The Vest Earrings in Town 49
Coin a New Purse! 53
Warm Limbs, Cool Lady 57
Move Over Buttons, Here Comes Something Better 61
Ain't No Collar Back Girl! 67
Put the "Olé!" in Your Bolero 73
Launch Yo Poncho 77
Mandarin Collar, Puffy Sleeves, and Hoodie?Oh My! 81
Get Your Giddyup On 87
Wooly Bully Winter Skirt 91

Chapter 4: Bottoms Up! 94
Suburban Pants, Meet City Shorts 97
Salsa, Not Just for Chips Anymore 101
Peek-a-Bootylicious Skirt 105
Good Girls Gone Tank 109
Busting Out of Old-Man Pants 113
That Really Chaps My Gauchos 119
Always a Bridesmaid, Never a Tie (or Halter) 123
Hot Muumuu Mama 131
Less Rock, More Rack! 135

Chapter 5: Everything but the Kitchen Sink 138
Checkbook Love: Game Point! 141
Cuff 'Em! 145
I Dream of Groceries 149
Sock It to Me 153
Hike That Skirt! 157
Touchdown, Toiletries! 161
Domestic Sun Goddess 165
Vest-a-licious 169
This Shirt Is the Sheet! 175
Boa-fy a Boudoir Basic! 181

Resources 184
Index 186

You may wonder, what's the big deal with this "thrifting" thing? Isn't it a bunch of old unwanted stuff that is out of style? Not true! Sure, lots of thrift shops have outdated satin bridesmaid's frocks, old tennis racket covers, and boring bathrobes that others have carelessly tossed aside. What they don't know is that these items have the potential to be halter tops, checkbook covers, and faux feather boas with a little help from your sewing machine. Subversive Seamster is your secret roadmap to the jewels of thrifting and the ins and outs of refashioning. This book holds our shortcuts, tips, and secrets to the wide world of inexpensive, individualized fashion.

Subversive Seamster is all about inspiration and transformation. It's about refashioning unwanted and tired clothes and giving them a whole new life in the front of your closet. While any clothing can be refashioned, thrift stores are a simple (and cheap) source for all sorts of pre-refashioned treasures! All too often your fellow thrift store shoppers look for ready-to-wear items and overlook the seemingly "hideous" sweater, not picturing what glorious mittens it would make. They may toss aside that leather vest, not knowing what a fabulous pair of earrings lie inside. Silly them! Fortunately, you are wiser and won't make such a rookie mistake.

Thrift stores are not like typical clothing stores--every garment is different from the next. For any given piece, there usually is only one available, and in one size. We subversive seamsters really value this part of the thrifting experience. Shopping is that much more exciting when you discover a unique garment that truly inspires you.

We organized the chapters in this book by types of clothing, just as thrift stores are generally organized. Find a top you love at the thrift store? Discover its potential in the hot tops chapter of Subversive Seamster! Find a cool pattern on a pair of old man pants? Turn that fun pattern into a hot new outfit from the pants chapter. Start with an item that inspires you and go from there! Tweak our ideas, and turn them into your own. Cheap thrift store finds give you license to cut without looking back!

Don't forget to look deeper. Look beyond the old sports jersey and see its potential. What's its future? Perhaps it will become a skirt? Or maybe a change purse? Perhaps that grandma nightgown will become a grocery bag? You just never know with us subversive seamsters. We're crazy like that!

Our clothes make a statement about who we are. What better way to say, "I am an individual!" than to wear one-of-a-kind items made from other one-of-a-kind items? We derive the most fashionable satisfaction knowing that we are reusing and recycling what already exists in this material world--and looking damn good doing it!

Now c'mon, let's get our refashion on, thrift store style!

Customer Reviews from Amazon

I checked this book out at the local library and will return it PRONTO! The projects offered here are for re-fashioning thrift store clothing. The finished products look awful. I can't even believe these young women would be caught dead wearing this stuff outside of their home. I grew up in San Francisco (am now 41 and living outside of California) and the only place you can wear this type of ugly-looking clothing would be in San Francisco, showing you are struggling to pay your rent, utilities, grocery bill, and credit card bills, thus you can only afford to wear $1 thrift store specials. The only project that was nice was the pillow cover/sham made out of a man's old shirt. Everything else was hideous. Do not purchase this book, unless you enjoy wearing ugly clothes that make you look that you have no fashion sense. Geez, even the punk rockers in San Francisco look better than the fashions offered in this book. No offense to punk rockers out there.

This book has truely great ideas about how to recycle items of clothing, where to get those items, all that sort of jazz! The sewing techniques are rather basic (I am an experienced seamstress)but they are well presented. Overall the book is a delight!

Love the DIY manniquin and some of the projects inside are very cute.
very easy to follow instructions though better for a beginner seamster.

This is not a book I would normally pick up in a bookstore. At first glance it is aimed at an age demographic slightly younger than the one I belong to. But don't let that stop you for from taking a look at this book. It's creative, fun, and full of great ideas.

I'm not normally a garage sale or thrift shopper (living in a place where winter lasts 7 months does away with a lot of garage sales and our one thrift ship is not all that inspiring. But reading this book made me want to go out and look for those one-of-a-kind items to refashion in my own style.

Subversive Seamster will help you navigate thrift shopping, help you decide what might and might not work as you remake a garment, provide, ilustrate basic sewing techniques youu'll need, and then gives you step-by-step instructions for everything from a duct tape dress form (great instructions) to tank tops, gaucho pants, checkbook covers, and more.

The Resource section will guide you to some garment districts, fabric stores and craft fairs across the country.

This book won't be everyone's cup of tea but have a look at it and see if it strikes a chord. I enjoyed it and plan on making a few projects to step out of my wardrobe box.

This book is beyond bad. For those trying to save money by buying at thrift stores - save your money and don't buy this book! The "fashion" ideas, and that is a term used loosely, are horrible and all look badly home made. In some of the photos the edges aren't even finished correctly ( i.e. a bustier with uneven edge seams and threads hanging out)- and most are fashions that no one in their right style mind would wear. They are not radical and hip, they are messy and sad. The only idea that might prove helpful is how to create your own dress makers dummy - and this is a recycled idea.


If you must look at this book, a trip to the local library and about 30 seconds is all you will need.

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