Upcycling Projects to Make With Your Serger
The following are some easy upcycling projects you can complete using your serger to get you started on your repurposed crafts journey!
Sewing is a great way to take items you no longer use and upcycle them into something repurposed that you’ll make good use out of. Sometimes this is clothing that you’ve outgrown or has gone out of style. Or maybe the item is a little threadbare in spots — it still has some usable fabric, but the overall piece has lost its functionality.
Men’s Shirt Into A Little Girl Dress
There are a handful of variations of this tutorial floating around online, and for a good reason. It’s a super cute project, and you can use existing seams, buttons, and hems to create a dress for your little girl, cutting down on sewing time. Plus, it’s adorable to see your young one in one of dad’s or grandpa’s hand-me-down dress shirts. This is one of those upcycling projects you’ll want to keep in your arsenal to make over and over again.
T-Shirt Into A Grocery Bag
Don’t throw those stretched-out or faded tee shirts away. Instead, use this tutorial to quickly turn them into a grocery bag that is perfect for produce or using at the farmer’s market. This is especially useful for those that live in areas where they have to provide their own grocery bags because plastic bags have been banned. If you have kids, this is a great starter craft to introduce young sewists to upcycling projects.
You keep the side and shoulder seams intact and cut the arms and neckline off, making what almost looks like a tank top. With the shoulder and side seams intact, the only sewing you need to do is the bottom hem. Using your serger is quick and easy and creates a stronger and more durable seam than your sewing machine.
Upcycle Jeans Into An Apron
Without a doubt, one of the most common clothing items that wear out is jeans. We’ve likely all got a pair or two with holes in the knees, busted zippers, or threadbare seams on the inside thighs, yet we can’t bring ourselves to throw them away.
Here’s a great solution! Instead of tossing them, recycle them into a durable denim apron. This apron is perfect for cooking, barbecuing, or doing home improvement projects. Even better, if your carpenter jeans have a hammer loop, you can conveniently transfer it to your new apron.
Tee Shirts Into A Quilt
Are you holding onto a stack of baseball tournament t-shirts or tees from your kid’s soccer camps? Or maybe you have a collection of tees from your younger days when you spent your extra cash on every rock concert within a few hour’s drive. If so, this is one of the upcycling projects parents love and is great way to turn those tees into a keepsake quilt.
Compared to the other projects on this list, making a quilt will be a more significant, more expensive undertaking. However, the time and money spent on it will be well worth it in the end. Using the unique tees, you create quilt blocks, stabilizing them with interfacing. Then you’ll sew them into the quilt top and sandwich all the layers together.
Baby Clothes Into A Memory Bear
As your babies grow up and outgrow their clothes, it’s so bittersweet to throw them away or donate them to someone else. Some parents choose to hang onto a couple of their favorite outfits, passing them along to the children when they grow up and start a family of their own. Instead of doing this, though, you could take one or two of those cherished outfits and make a plush memory bear.
Knit outfits or soft pajamas are the best materials to use, but you can make the bear using any material. Or you can patchwork fabric together using a few of your favorite outfits.
Tee Shirt Into A Girl’s Skirt
Little girls that love to twirl and dance around can never have enough skirts! This pattern takes an adult knit tee-shirt, cutting the bottom off just below the armpits, and then attaches a knit waistband instead of elastic. Using your serger is a great way to attach the gathered skirt to the band without the seams puckering as you sew yet still maintaining some stretch.
Old Towels Into Makeup Remover Pads
This is a perfect upcycling project for those towels that may have gotten bleach-stained, the ends are starting to unravel, or they’re just a little too thin to be useful anymore. Plus, creating makeup remover pads cut down on the disposable paper products you’re using in the bathroom. Sew up a stack of them, use them to take off your makeup at night, and then throw them in the wash with your towels.
There are numerous ways to do this project. You could do two layers of towel fabric — cut into circles or hexagons — and then sew them together using your serger. Or you could do one layer of towel fabric and a layer of knit from an old t-shirt or cotton woven from a skirt or dress shirt.
Flannel Shirts Into An Infinity Scarf
Those lightweight floppy flannel shirts are great to upcycle in this project! Use a single shirt and piece fabric together to create the base rectangle, or use a couple of shirts and sew strips together. Infinity scarves are quick to sew together, and their design is forgiving if you’re new to sewing and your seams aren’t perfectly straight.
In this case, using a lightweight flannel that doesn’t have much structure or stiffness to it will create a scarf that drapes nicely. Plus, it’s a super fun accessory to add to your outfit on chilly days.
Vinyl Tablecloth Into A Garden Kneeler
Use your old, not so functional anymore, flannel-backed vinyl tablecloth to create a kneeling pad for gardening. Using the tablecloth, you cut it into rectangles and sew it to make a casing/cover for a foam chunk. The vinyl table cloth is easy to wipe clean if it gets muddy or dirty outside, and the foam helps protect your knees, keeping them from hurting.
Old Clothes Into Hair Scrunchies
With fabric scrunchies back in style again, this upcycling project is a great way to quickly use up a ton of scraps from old clothes, turning them into cute hair accessories. You can use old skirts, tee shirts, men’s dress shirts, or even silk scarves to make hair scrunchies. Mix and match them to coordinate or contrast with your favorite outfits.
Simply cut a long rectangle of fabric, fold it in half with the long sides together, and then run a strip of elastic through the newly created casing. Stitch the elastic into a loop, causing the fabric to gather, and then finish the project by hand stitching the ends of the fabric tube together. Within minutes you can have a finished scrunchy!
Related Articles
What Can I Make With A Serger
Best Serger Projects For Beginners
Serger Project Ideas
About Amanda S.: Growing up, I was fascinated by watching my mom and grandma turn fabric into beautiful handcrafted items. In my early 20’s, I finally got brave, buying a sewing machine and teaching myself to sew. As I fell in love with sewing, my machine collection expanded, and I ran an Etsy shop sewing children’s clothing for a few years. As a single mom of 3 great kids, my sewing time has lessened, but I still try to find time to work on quilts, bags, and projects with my kids, teaching them what I love.