Hello, fellow Craftster-er!   

I know your conundrum verrrrrrrrry well.  I look on Torrid and the like all the time, and make a mental wishlist of all the things I would buy if I was rich........or even worse, I see all the awesome things for sale in the small sizes I couldn't wear from the time I was born, LOL. 

My first and easiest suggestions would be looking at tutorials on no-sew t-shirt recons or drawing your own designs onto some plain shirts with fabric markers.  I took a plain $5 v-neck t-shirt and drew on a retro Elvis design. 

Also, there are amazing ideas on here for sewing or tailoring clothing into flattering and stylish new pieces.  I made my own Rockabilly wedding dress out of a ridiculous retro leopard-print Mumuu from Goodwill.  I also converted a floral "church lady" dress into a hi-low hem, grunge-style dress.  Basically, my advice is to play around.  I've had my share of recon disasters, but I also have a wardrobe of D.I.Y. gorgeousness that cost me next to nothing.  This site is a great place to start, and for lessons on cutting/t-shirt surgery YouTube seems to have a zillion videos to make it easier to follow.

Best wishes!

As a girl with the knees of a husky 12-year-old boy, including the scars and scrapes, I can totally relate to being less-than-in-love with your knees.  I think a high-low starting just below the knee would be gorgeous, and a nice twist on the style.  I'm personally a fan of those maxi-dresses that are in style right now, but hate the thought of "swimming" in so much fabric.  To take one of those and apply the high-low look starting just below the knee would probably be marvelous as well.  (Sorry.  I'm sort of thinking out loud here, LOL.)  One great thing about making a skirt like that would be that if you try it and it just doesn't seem to work, you can always hem it a bit shorter until you achieve the desired effect.  After all that long-winded business, long story short, I say go for it!  

UPDATE:  Just found this pic of a longer version of the high-low/mullet skirt.  I think it's pretty gosh-darn awesome!

I've been seeing all this hubbub about these high-waist, plus-sized bikinis, or "Fatkinis" as they are apparently called in the body acceptance community.  I checked the prices online for the ones that suit my style (i.e. pinup girl/retro/rockabilly) and let's just say that by the time I have the extra cash to spend $75-150 on a bathing suit, it'll probably be snowing......in Hades.   

So after all of that exposition, my question is this:  Have any of you made your own bathing suit?  Here's my idea for what I'm going to attempt, so please feel free to tell me if it's just all kinds of crazy.

I have a stretchy synthetic leopard tube top/mini-dress from Torrid, a pair of regular bathing suit bottoms, and a strapless bra, along with some stretchy black fabric for a halter strap.  What I think will work is to sew the top to the bra, put it on and decide how short to cut it off, and add some elastic around the bottom edge as well as some decorative black edging.  For the bottoms, I plan to make a high-waisted swim skirt.  I figure I can take what is left from the bottom of the tube top and determine how high/long it needs to be, sew in an elastic waistband, and then somehow secure the bottoms to the skirt.  Basically, I'll be Frankenstein-ing together a bunch of random things to try and save a buck.   

Does this sound like a disaster in the making?  I have a sort of "vision" for it which is different than the ones I've seen for sale, but the photo I've shared is just to show the "Fatkini" look in general.  Also, the rough sketches sort of show the look I'm going for (and can hopefully achieve), with a tie-halter neck, decorative tie in the back, and ruched (?) sides of the swim bottoms, as well as some useless buttons on the front to just make it daggone cute.  What do you all think?   

  Tess Munster is my hero, BTW!  <3

An excellent transformation!  Gotta love "one of a kind"!   

Thanks.  I wore them tonight for the recital and the bows and Elvis' survived, so I'm very happy with them. 

[I am the queen of clearance shopping, which is how I acquired this pair of pink glitter ballet flats a couple of months ago. Nothing wrong with them. Just kinda.....blah. Fast forward to this week, and this gal on a supertight budget was in desperate need of some snazzy new shoes for my daughter's ballet recital. A can of $.98 black spray-paint, $1.97 satin ribbon and some fun with leftover polymer clay was all it took to create my very own Elvis-skull Rockabilly Shoes. I made my own bows with the satin ribbon, which I hot-glued to the previously spray-painted shoes, and then attached the Elvis medallions with copious amounts of hot glue. I'm pleased as punch with them, and I hope you all like them as well. Sorry for the rambling, as this is my very first post and I'm just so darn excited! Here's a before:]

I am the queen of clearance shopping, which is how I acquired this pair of pink glitter ballet flats a couple of months ago.  Nothing wrong with them.  Just kinda.....blah.  Fast forward to this week, and this gal on a supertight budget was in desperate need of some snazzy new shoes for my daughter's ballet recital.  A can of $.98 black spray-paint, $1.97 satin ribbon and some fun with leftover polymer clay was all it took to create my very own Elvis-skull Rockabilly Shoes.  I made my own bows with the satin ribbon, which I hot-glued to the previously spray-painted shoes, and then attached the Elvis medallions with copious amounts of hot glue.  I'm pleased as punch with them, and I hope you all like them as well.  Sorry for the rambling, as this is my very first post and I'm just so darn excited!     Here's a before:  [/b][/font][/color]
And some after pics: 

Pure awesomeness!  I can't swear that I will actually attempt this, but I will now have loads of wonderful daydreams of turning my well-loved band tees into rockin' corsets.  Why, oh why, didn't I ever learn to sew properly?!  The quality on this is so ridiculous that I doubt many would believe it was homemade.  You are one talented Craftster-er! 

Wowzers!  You had me at "zombie Elvis", LOL.  Where do you get custom fabric printed?  I was unaware that was even a "thing".  I don't have any fabric as cool as yours, but methinks I should hit up Goodwill and see if they have any kids' bedding or curtains so that I can try this!  Great work! 

Oh. My. Gosh.  I was peeking through this section looking for things to do with some spare polymer clay, and your necklace stopped me in my tracks.  I would have never thought of this in a million years.  This is beyond adorable!  I think I'm going to try this with a "storm cloud" motif (i.e. grey cloud and lightning bolts).  Thanks for the inspiration! 

So adorable!  This would be perfect for my daughter who wants to be a ballerina.  This could be personalized for any child's interests, so I think I'll be doing some of these as gifts.  Thanks for the great tutorial! 

AH-MAZING!  I would have never thought to completely re-upholster (probably not the right word, LOL) a pair of shoes.  I have a very well-loved pair of low-top Chucks that I've been wanting to snazz up.  I think I'll be trying to work up my courage and attempt this for myself.