How to Thrift Flip

3 Materials

2 Hours

Easy

I love shopping at thrift stores and finding unique pieces of clothing to add to my wardrobe. With thrift flipping as the new rage, I decided to alter some thrifted pieces and give myself a minimalist wardrobe makeover. Follow my tutorial below to find out how I took two second-hand pieces of clothing and used nothing but a needle, some thread, and a few bobby pins to create perfect, modern, minimalist fashion statements on a budget.

Tools and Materials:

Needle
Thread
Bobby pins

Minimalist clothing essentials

Thrift flip this metallic top

I started with this metallic top that I picked up second hand. I love this top but the sleeves were just a little too long on me.

Cut the sleeves

I started by simply chopping off the extra fabric on the sleeves. I made sure to measure beforehand so that I knew exactly where I wanted to cut.

Make a stitch

Once I had cut off the extra fabric, I made a double thread stitch around the edge of the sleeves. This stitch helps secure the fabric from running.

Turn in the edges

I turned in my newly stitched edges about a centimeter in and got my needle and thread ready.

Minimalist clothing hacks

Thrifty Hack:

I didn’t have any pins so I used some bobby pins to hold my folded edges in place. I love that you can use things for more than one function!

Sew invisible stitch

Once all my bobby pins were in, I took my needle and thread and made tiny incisions to create an invisible stitch in the sleeve. I made sure to stretch the material slightly while I was sewing so that I’d have no problems fitting my arm through later.

Minimalist clothing list women

I absolutely adore this shirt with its new fitted sleeves. I love how easy it is to take a piece of clothing and make it perfect for you! I’ll definitely wear this more now that I feel so comfortable in it.

How to be a minimalist with clothes

Make alterations to a jacket

I’ve had this jacket for a while now and I always liked it, but I was ready to make a few changes to it so that I would love it!

Remove the pocket flaps

I started by removing the pocket flaps because I found them a little bit distracting. It’s important to remove the stitch from the inside and not the outside so that you don’t by mistake make a big hole in the jacket that can’t be fixed. I took small scissors and picked the stitches of the pocket flaps.

Minimalist clothing women

Once the pocket flaps were removed I put the jacket on and tucked in the collar and the buttons.

Hold with bobby pins

I used my handy little bobby pins to hold the tucks in place so that I would know exactly where I needed to sew later.

Tuck the sleeves

I also tucked the sleeves because they were way too long on me. I put in my bobby pins and then measured the sleeve so that when I made changes on the second sleeve they would be the exact same length.

Minimalist list of clothes

I started by doing an invisible stitch on the edges of the jacket, where the seam of the fold ends on the inside. This was important because I didn’t want any flapping pieces of fabric on the inside of the jacket. Once I had sewn down the seam I did another invisible stitch towards the edge of the fold to secure my new and improved minimalist jacket. I repeated this process on the sleeves and collar.

Modern minimalist clothing

I am in love with this jacket now! I’m so happy with this alteration.

Sometimes a really small, simple change to clothes can make all the difference. How would you create a more minimalist wardrobe? Let me know in the comments below!

Suggested materials:

Needle
Thread
Bobby pins