Personalize Your Clothing Lace Inserts

Supplies: 

Sharp knife 

Scissors 

Cardboard 

Garment 

Lace 

Sewing machine or needle and thread

Some of your favorite clothes - or some of your least favorite outfits - can be changed to please you when you cut them up. You won't cut the clothing so that they're ruined; that would be ridiculous. Instead, cut out certain sections of clothing and replace them with lace. You can make an old outfit look new or make a plain item of clothing look much more elegant.

Clothing cutouts can be done on tees and other shirts, jeans, dresses, and more. What's required is that you choose a place on the outfit, cut it out, and sew lace in to replace that cloth. A piece of cardboard can protect the table as you do the cutting. Lay the garment out flat, slide the cardboard between the layers, and cut the desired area with an Exacto knife, or a sharp craft knife.

Clearly, you can't just make a cut anywhere on the outfit. Some good places to cut a tee or other shirt can include a slash from the front of one shoulder, across the chest, and over to the opposite side - just above the breast. Another place that a cutout can be done on a shirt is across the back. On jeans, a cutout can be done on the front of one of the legs.

Cut the area that you want and then trim a bit off of each cut edge. The trimming will open a wider hole so that more of the lace replacement will be seen. Cut a piece of lace to be slightly longer and wider than the actual cutout. Pin the lace to the back of the garment area and then sew around it. Use a straight stitch and stay near the edge; sew around the cutout and then cut away any excess lace.

The cutouts that you do on the chosen clothes can be random or more defined. You can make a slit across a tee shirt or create a heart on the back of a dress. Make random cuts on a pair of jeans or a design of your own on any chosen article of clothing. The lace insert can be sewn by machine or by hand.

It's fun to take clothes that everyone has already seen and change them to look new again. You can do that when you create cutouts and lace inserts that give the garments - and yourself - a whole new outlook.